


Tag Team

by Violet_Jones



Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Cute Kids, Domestic Bliss, Fix-It, Future Fic, M/M, My one and only married with children fic, Post-Canon, Ten Years Later, Twenty Years Later, dads
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-06
Updated: 2017-11-05
Packaged: 2018-12-11 17:23:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 36,438
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11718999
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Violet_Jones/pseuds/Violet_Jones
Summary: Future fic that fixes the post-S7 storyline, following the next 20+ years of Ian & Mickey's lives, and giving them a chance to parent two unruly young boys.





	1. After the Getaway

**Author's Note:**

> Chapter 1 is basically a long-ass prologue to the present day story. I made an attempt to believably (for Shameless) bring Ian & Mickey back together post-s7. I think the only thing I really retconned was Mickey's tattoo. He still has it, but it just says 'Ian,' since that would actually make sense. *insert eye-roll*
> 
>  [](http://i.imgur.com/vRCrEOp.jpg)  
>   
> 

**CHICAGO, ILLINOIS, USA**

Ian was surprised by how much he missed Mickey after they’d parted ways at the border in Laredo, even though he shouldn’t have been. He’d grown accustomed to Mickey’s absence before he’d made that sudden crash landing back into Ian’s life. It left him mostly confused, because he could have sworn he’d had the upper hand; but that was until he’d actually been in Mickey’s presence for five seconds without anything impeding them from reaching out and touching one another.

It seemed strange that things between them should end so far away from where they’d spent their entire lives circling each other; in a place that Ian had never even heard of before his brief stint aiding and abetting ‘fugitive’ Mickey. Nothing that had ever happened between them had ever gone the expected route, though. Not since that day that seemed a few lifetimes ago, when Ian was only 15, and they’d first revealed themselves to each other while they were fighting in Mickey’s bedroom over Kash’s gun. Ian had expected to put up a good fight and probably take a bad beating, but instead he’d taken the first unwitting step into the dramatic romance that ended up defining his life for years, and continued to do so, even as he willed it to let him go.

In the weeks following the parting of the ways, Ian had planned on operating much the same as he had when Mickey got locked up over that bullshit with Sammi in the first place. He would let himself ride a wave of numbness and apathy to a point where he could convince himself he’d finally moved on. He’d even act like he had to everyone around him. As far as they knew, Mickey had nothing to do with his mood anymore anyway.

Yet Ian was right back on square one in terms of his heartache. There was a good chance he’d never see Mickey again, and that was finally sinking in. There was little he could do, except compartmentalize and try to move on. Like he had before.

Monica’s death was rough on him in ways his siblings didn’t understand. It brought out a lot of things in them that he understood, but didn’t appreciate. Still, as always, he bit his tongue and tamped down his true feelings, revealing very little of what he was really thinking. And what he was really thinking about most, even through the fog of swirling thoughts about his mother, was Mickey: ‘What if _this_ , and what if _that_.’ He was certain every single possible fucking ‘ _what if’_ you could run through your head about the person you love during a time of tragedy did a fucking marathon lap around his brain.

Still, he was convinced there had to be a way he could live his life without Mickey in it and be happy. Besides which, Mickey would undeniably get dealt a lot less drama without Ian around. Sometimes he felt like they were cursed; forever doomed to the worst possible case scenario anytime they tried to be together. He didn’t really believe in that kind of shit, but at the same time, he had no other fucking explanation for how things could’ve spun so far out of control with them over and over again. It was a cruel joke the universe enjoyed playing on them.

After some debate, he decided to sell the meth Monica had left him, and replenished his savings account with the $10k he reaped (well, sort of, he’d stashed it all in a safety deposit box in cash, like some kind of real life classy criminal). He figured he never got much from his parents before, and it wasn’t like he’d led a morally straight and narrow life. One gross drug deal was gonna set him up good. When it came down to it, he didn’t have the luxury of passing up that kind of opportunity that had just fallen into his lap unrequested if he wanted his life to really change. And he didn’t quite know exactly how he was gonna change it, but he knew it couldn’t stay the same.

He’d let things be after Trevor had broken it off with him. He knew that he’d never understand any better even if he’d told him the whole truth about Mickey (no one ever really did), and there were too many other issues between them to begin with. Ian knew it wasn’t going anywhere. No point in dragging it out. He needed someone lower maintenance than Trevor or Caleb, or at least someone who could make high maintenance worth it. He was so fucking bad at having no one at all, though. In one way or another, he’d never really had to go it alone very long since he was like barely 14 years old. He always needed someone to want him, or he didn’t know what to do with himself. Being alone forced him to focus too much on everything he couldn’t stand about who he was and who he’d never be. He welcomed the distraction.

A few weeks after separating, Ian got up the courage to find out if his burner phone he’d gotten in Texas would still connect with the last working number Mickey had programmed in. He took it out of the back of his sock drawer one evening, turned it on, and sat on the edge of his bed for about fifteen minutes trying to think of what he should say.

He figured texting would be the less painful way to go about it.

> **Ian** : _This still your number?_  
> 

He must’ve stared at the screen for twenty minutes straight, his insides all twisted up, holding his breath, vision blurring, before the phone pinged back.

> **Mickey** : _Why?_  
> 

Ian exhaled loudly and ran a hand over his tired face.

> **Ian** : _I’m sorry._  
> 

Five minutes went by.

> **Mickey** : _Ok_  
> 

Ian knew it was the best he could hope for right then. At least Mickey knew that he was thinking about him.

He began texting him every night for the next week, just saying little things like ‘ _Miss you_ ,’ and ‘ _Wish you were here_.’ He grimaced at himself when he hit _send_ on that one, but simple platitudes were all he could really do right then, and he didn’t wanna keep saying the same two things like a broken record. Mickey only replied with sarcastic emojis like a _thumbs up_ , or a _sure_ hand gesture.

Then one night, his text had failed to deliver. He’d kept furiously trying to re-send it, but no dice. He almost had a panic attack, and cried into his pillow until he drifted to sleep, weighed down by a feeling of utter despair for the next couple of days. Then he came home from work to a package with his name scrawled across the front sitting on the kitchen counter. Fiona hadn’t seen who’d left it, but it contained a phone with one messenger app installed on it, with one phone number programmed into the app. He hadn’t felt so relieved since the first time he’d seen Mickey under the bleachers at the high school after he’d broken out. He hadn’t been prepared either time, but was flooded with gratefulness instantly.

He somehow managed to wait until the time of night he usually got in touch, and actually initiated a phone call. He needed a more tangible way to reconnect after so quickly convincing himself that Mickey was gone for good.

Mickey answered on the fourth ring.

“ _Bold move, Gallagher_ ,” he said in greeting. The sound of his voice moved through Ian like a tangible thing, and he instantly felt at ease.

“Are you okay?”

“ _I’m alive._ ”

“What does that mean? You have any trouble?”

“ _Nah, I’ve been layin’ low._ ”

“Good. That’s good,” replied Ian, suddenly at a loss for what to say. “Monica died.” He had no idea why that was what came out.

“ _Shit. When?_ ”

“When we were in Texas. She had a brain aneurysm from drug-related shit.”

“ _Sorry, man. You okay?_ ”

Ian huffed a harsh laugh, “Not really, but you know, I maintain.”

“ _Good, well. . . stay healthy._ ”

“Mickey, I really am sorry that I left you, and that I’m not with you. I was afraid of. . . you know, nothing ever turned out well for me in the past when I ran away without telling anyone. I didn’t wanna become fucked up again, and drag you down with me. It woulda been a mess. I was afraid, and I didn’t have enough time to think. I lo–”

“ _Don’t!_ ” Mickey interjected. “ _Just. . . stop._ ”

“I can’t, Mick.”

“ _Sure you can, Ian. You’ve done it before._ ”

Those words sliced into him like a dull-edged blade, but he knew he deserved it.

“I’ve tried–” he began again.

“ _I gotta go, man._ ”

“Mickey, please–”

“ _Ian. Just. . . try to move on. That’s what I plan on doin’._ ”

His breath caught, and he wasn’t sure he’d be able to get out a response, until he was vaguely mumbling, “Okay.”

“ _Later,_ ” said Mickey hurriedly, and ended the call before Ian could respond.

He’d left him alone for the following week, worried that despite going through the trouble of having someone get a phone to him with a working number, it had all just been to facilitate a final kiss off. Not that Mickey had been vicious or even unreasonable, but if he really wanted to move on, why continue to give Ian a way to reach him?

He downloaded a language learning app on his phone, and started taking basic Spanish just for the hell of it. He found a decent cheap Mexican restaurant that made giant burritos, and started hanging out there a few times a week. He’d sit at the same corner table, practicing vocabulary and grammar while scarfing down lunches too big for his stomach. He would later come to find out burritos weren’t even a thing in Mexico.

> **Ian** : _I’m learning Spanish._
> 
> **Mickey** : _Congrats._
> 
> **Ian** : _You been learning?_
> 
> **Mickey** : _Kinda have to._
> 
> **Ian** : _You using Duolingo?_
> 
> **Mickey** : _Yeah, plus some of the locals help._
> 
> **Ian** : _¿Estás haciendo amigos?_
> 
> **Mickey** : _Fuck off._
> 
> **Ian** : _No comprendo._
> 
> **Mickey** : _Chingate._

The one thing that stayed stable and good for Ian through the next year and a half apart from Mickey was his job. He was still an EMT. It was the only thing he felt like he wasn’t fucking up. He started forcing himself to date guys casually, rather than trying to make every dude who came along immediately into a serious thing. He didn’t feel like expending the kind of effort of took to try making it real with anyone, when he was always thinking about someone else.

Ian continued messaging with Mickey daily. He would receive a new phone every few months with a new number programmed in. Mickey was still tentative with him most of the time, but he’d stopped giving him such a hard time, and became a little more forthcoming with information. Just knowing that Mickey would rather keep in touch than let him go was enough to hold onto at the time. The fact that he kept making an effort meant a lot to him, and it gave him hope that all was not lost.

As his daily life trudged along, he couldn’t get his ex out of his head, and it finally really dawned on him that if he was going to do something about Mickey, he was going to have to go to him. There was no other way.

Fiona worried that Ian was going manic when he told her that he was taking sailing lessons on Lake Michigan. He calmly explained that he was fine, and that it was just something he’d taken a recent interest in. No one understood why he’d wanna do some random rich dude shit like that in the middle of Chicago, but Ian didn’t care.

> **Ian** : _Estoy aprendiendo a navegar un velero._
> 
> **Mickey** : _Para?_
> 
> **Ian** : ¿ _No vives cerca de la playa?_
> 
> **Mickey** : _So?_
> 
> **Ian** : _So. . . maybe I’ve been fantasizing about the ocean._

  


* * *

  


**CIUDAD DE OAXACA, OAXACA, MEXICO**

It was hard for Mickey to stop driving once he finally made it across the border. He was terrified that if he didn’t get far enough south, he’d still be at risk of being caught. He didn’t really pay attention to much except the gas stations and road stalls where he could get cheap food. He even bought a paper map, which fucking cracked him up for a few delirious minutes. Never in his life had he ever had a need to study a map to figure out how to get somewhere. Not only because he never went very far to begin with, but everywhere he ever drove when he was younger, his dad or one of his brothers would gruffly guide him by memory from the passenger seat. His last passenger guide had been Ian, who had used some phone app to guide them from Chicago to Texas.

The farther he’d gotten from the crossing gates in Laredo, the heavier his heart felt, because it meant more distance between him and Ian as they each moved in opposite directions, probably for good. The empty seat next to him would remain tainted by echoes of the former occupant for months later.

He hadn’t exactly expected Ian to back out on their plan in the 11th hour, but he also hadn’t been surprised, either. Not really. By that point, it was a wonder he still had any heart left to feel heavy in the first place. It kept getting ripped away from him piece by piece, not always by Ian, but most acutely by him. There was probably only so many times you could be let down and hung out to dry by the only person you’d ever really loved before it became too much.

He had to stop off in Monterrey to meet up with a guy Damon had referred him to trade in his license plate and get another set of fake identification documents. He decided to stay the night as he’d always intended to. He may have looked up some gay bars there, back when they were still in Texas. Sure, he’d intended on going to one with Ian so they could celebrate his freedom, but things being as they were, it became more of a melancholy exercise in attempted escapism.

He spent about half an hour drinking tequila alone at the bar, then grabbed some mocha-skinned twink making eyes at him across the bar and took him to the bathroom for a quick, sad, bang so he could pretend for a minute like he had control over his emotions for Ian Gallagher; pretend like he could turn them off. It was a cold comfort, and as he suspected, it hadn’t worked at all. It wasn’t really new for him to find quick releases with people whilst thinking about Ian. It was an unfortunate recurring theme.

It would’ve been simpler to just travel the eastern side of the country, along the Atlantic coast, so he he opted for the harder and more unexpected thing, and set his sights on the Pacific side instead, traversing the large country’s interior. The connected guy that had helped him in Monterrey spoke English, and had given him traveling tips, marking his map with all the areas he’d do best to avoid as a pale _gringo_. Armed with that, he was able to avoid any incidents that may have derailed his plans. He drove from dawn ‘til a good ways past dusk everyday until he ended up in Oaxaca. Not the most southern tip of the country, but it was close, and far enough away from the point where he’d entered to hopefully be off the radar should anything have come up later in terms of his crossing over. Like if they’d been able to make him after the fact, using taped surveillance video or some shit.

The capital city of the state was big enough to have job opportunities, and it was close enough to the coast, with smaller sized beaches farther down the seaboard than the main American tourist trap resort areas. That made him feel more at ease about being so out in the open again. Freedom in and of itself still felt extremely awkward to him, and he didn’t have anyone to help him get over it. Not that he was ever one for self-pity, and he’d never really relied on anyone for shit anyway. He figured he would grow accustomed to it naturally over time and there wasn’t much he could do about it meanwhile.

Puerto Escondido was the largest and most popular beach area near him, and the prettiest. It was where he saw the sea for the first time, crystal blue, a low pleasant roar as the waves rolled in. Just like in the movies. He debated it for an embarrassing amount of time before taking his shoes off, rolling his pants up, and stepping into the water. He’d kept picturing himself falling over like an idiot and getting swept away, unable to yell for help in Spanish, and drifting off until he either drowned, or some great white shark surfaced to eat him. Eventually, he’d realized that was an unreasonable fear. The water felt good, and he finally understood that whole salty musk everyone always associated with the ocean. The wet sand slipping through his toes as his feet sunk with the ebb and flow of the tide was unexpected and soothing, forcing a genuine smile out of him as he looked out at the horizon.

The world felt really big. He’d never in his life thought that before.

He got a job doing construction, sometimes in the city, sometimes out at one of the resorts they were building nearby. He didn’t want to keep having to watch his back so much and worry about getting thrown into a Mexican prison, or just plain murdered, so he was trying not to do anything too illegal for once in his life. The guilt money Ian had left him with in Laredo was still going strong enough. He had a plain, shitty studio apartment with bars on all the windows, and few expenses. He’d had his own money stashed for paying off the connections who’d helped him get his falsified I.D. and license plate.

Most of his initial time in Mexico had been spent trying to get over Ian, but the problem was that as much as he wanted to, he couldn’t bring himself to sever all ties with his maddening ginger ass. The physical distance between them was so wide now, if he didn’t have that one lifeline out there somewhere, _just in case of_. . . he didn’t know what, but he would’ve lost his mind. He wasn’t strong enough to let him go.

He hadn’t been lying when he told Ian he was under his skin. Mickey could bang as many dudes as he pleased, but none inspired a shred of interest in him beyond the physical. When they were first hooking up, Ian had been so persistent that he’d kind of forced the feelings out of Mickey just by constantly and stubbornly trying to get his own way, pushing him further and further until he was suddenly all these things he never thought he’d be. He still had no idea how to extend those feelings toward anyone else but Ian. Maybe he had somewhat been able to with Yev when he was a baby, but he tried not to think about that too much. It did cause a pang of regret thinking about his son, but he knew that the kid was better off without him. He couldn’t exactly take Svetlana on the run with a toddler. Besides, she’d divorced him anyway, and moved on to the next meal ticket.

He tried to hang out around some of the other younger guys he worked with, but they bored the fuck out of him. He had nothing in common with them, and with the language barrier on top of that, there just wasn’t much to do but sit back and drink. He had no interest in the girls they tried to hit on, obviously, and that was their main pastime when they were out on the town. He had a couple of fucks on the down-low with guys as closeted as he had been a few years back, but that ended up being the only occasional benefit. He couldn’t get into their scene, or whatever.

Instead, he soon found himself hanging around a group of old guys who were aways at the same spot by the beach, usually playing dominos, sometimes chess, and other shit. They had a deep distrust and disdain for him at first, just by virtue of being his white-ass, obvious American self with questionable tattoos, but soon enough their moniker of ‘ _Gringo de mierda_ ’ became a fond tease, rather than a sharp rebuke.

They helped him learn Spanish just by virtue of letting him listen to their exchanges. Like most old dudes, they liked to tell stories, and Mickey soon found himself able to follow along well enough. As the months wore on, he was able to understand more and more everyday, but he could still speak very little. However, it was precisely his penchant for silence that gained him acceptance into their geezer beach bum club to begin with.

Suddenly a year had gone by, and the world hadn’t ended.

Mickey, for all intents and purposes, was doing okay. He’d moved to Puerto Escondido from the capital officially and lived blocks away from the beach. Not only did the city’s name mean ‘hidden port’ in Spanish, but the neighborhood he lived in was actually called Libertad, which means ‘liberty.’ Mickey appreciated the parallels. He still had an underlying layer of misery beneath the surface, but he got a lot better at not letting it rule his mood every day.

As much as he hated himself for it, keeping in touch with Ian helped immensely. It sucked to know he was out there living his life without him, but it was way fucking better than not knowing anything about him ever again. He was pushed into a sort of all or nothing situation if he wanted to have any peace of mind.

And then one day, Ian started dropping hints about coming down to Mexico. Mickey figured he wanted to come visit him for the summer or some shit like that, probably on paid vacation, all cushy-like, but the asshole was taking sailing lessons and teaching himself Spanish, and it had started to freak Mickey out a little bit.

He refused to get his hopes up in regards to Ian Gallagher ever again.

A year and a half had gone by before Ian called him again for the first time since the testy exchange they’d had shortly after they’d gone their separate ways.

“Gallagher?” he answered.

“ _Hey, Mick_.” It was so good to hear his voice. He hadn’t realized how much he missed it. Made him feel like Ian was real again.

“Got some big news or somethin’?” he asked, pretending to be unaffected.

“ _I guess you could say that. I need your address_.”

“Whatcha need that for? I don’t even have a mailbox.”

“ _Not trying to send you anything. Trying to give you a much better gift than mail._ ”

Mickey gulped thickly, immediately on edge about the implications.

“I don’t know if that’s a good idea, Ian.” Seeing Ian again only to let him go again, maybe it could give him closure, but he was pretty sure it would just destroy him anew. Was getting a little bit more time with him worth the pain that always lingered afterward?

“‘ _Course it is, Mick. I’m ready. I’ve made plans. Well, you know, as many as possible. There are a lot of contingents; the main one being you._ ”

“The fuck are you talkin’ about?”

“ _I’m talkin’ about leaving Chicago. I can do it now. I wanna do it. I wanna. . . be with you. If you’ll have me_.”

“Ian. . .” Mickey didn’t know what to say. Not only was he highly skeptical about Ian’s mind really being made up, since he couldn’t trust that shit before, but he also couldn’t see how Ian could have been moved to do a total one-eighty about the risks involved in being with Mickey now. If uprooting his life was too much for him before, why would it be any different now? “I live in a foreign country on fake papers, hopin’ I don’t get busted for anything I can’t afford to buy my way out of, and get fuckin’ extradited for breakin’ outta state prison. Thought that’s not somethin’ you can deal with anymore.”

“ _Mick, listen, I’m not gonna be able to convince you of anything from over here. Let me come to you, and I’ll tell you– I’ll fucking_ show _you that I mean it this time. I’ve told everybody about it. I’m not lying, or pretending. I put in my notice at work and everything. I’m done with Chicago._ ”

Mickey knew he was only fooling himself thinking he wasn’t completely helpless and incapable of denying himself any bit of Ian that he could get. He’d had to go so long without hardly any of him in recent years. Whatever Ian’s intentions, and however they panned out, Mickey would take any and all of what was available. He didn’t know any other way.

“Get a pen.”

  


* * *

  


**PUERTO ESCONDIDO, OAXACA, MEXICO**

Ian spent his 21st birthday bar-hopping along the beach, which was never how he’d pictured that particular rite of passage. Not that the milestone held much weight for him, since he was used to being allowed to drink in public since he was pretty young. Here it didn’t matter at all, because the drinking age was only 18, but still, he was free from the trappings of his old life, and he was with Mickey starting a new one, and he felt like fucking celebrating.

That night, he dove into the warm ocean and swam out pretty far from the shore, stopping to float on the surface and and stare up at the star-filled sky, basking in the moonlight. Mickey hung back, cowering on the sand, as he still hadn’t plucked up the courage to learn how to swim. He also had a mild phobia of the sea itself, because of its seeming infinity, and the fact that potential predators lurked in its unseen depths. He tried to talk Ian out of night-swimming, fearing for his life, due to the added inkiness overhead. He’d eventually called out to him loudly from the beach to get his ass back on land, which made Ian laugh. He made fun of Mickey once he was back ashore, then fucked him in a hidden, rocky alcove where the water only came up a bit past their ankles.

It was a good day.

He found it hilarious that Mickey had fallen in with a group of local guys in their 60s and 70s, but it also made total sense, given Mickey’s generally grumpy demeanor. It wasn’t until he was hanging around old dudes regularly that Ian realized Mickey was basically one of them, albeit much sexier physically. They spent all their extra time by the beach shooting the shit and challenging each other to shuffleboard, cornhole, and other boring shit like that. Mickey even joined a domino tournament, which Ian teased him about endlessly.

Still, it had been easy to get those old dudes to like him too, and they didn’t seem to give a shit about Ian and Mickey’s obvious relationship. It was pretty evident even though they refrained from any real open signs of their affection in public. A few of them worked on boats, being as the city was a prominent fisherman’s port, and Ian managed to finagle a job out of one of them, so that he was able to put his new water vessel skills to use. He learned how to fish too, and it wasn’t long before Manuel was letting him captain one of the boats himself half the time. Ian didn’t get the same kind of satisfaction out of it that he got from being an EMT, but it was more than an acceptable trade off for the location and significantly lower stress levels.

He was still in awe over how completely he could change the circumstances of his life when he made the effort. So far, he hadn’t even crashed at all. He’d brought enough meds with him to last a few months, and Mickey used his low connections to get him scripts so he could fill them at the local pharmacy. It was disgusting how much more affordable all his pills were in Mexico, even without any health insurance. Despite the upheaval in his daily routine and the very foundation of his life, he’d managed to stay on a pretty even keel.

He was keeping pretty active physically, in more fun ways than he had back in Chicago. He still liked to go for runs, and did so along the gorgeous coastline, which made for a much cheerier atmosphere than the gray concrete decay of the streets in Canaryville. He also started taking surfing lessons, and befriended some of the local guys who practically lived on their boards. They helped him get better at both the sport, and the local vernacular, and they did other active stuff together like play volleyball and soccer in the sand.

Mickey had been suspicious as fuck of the dudes’ intentions at first, being more possessive than he would ever admit to. Ian quickly put an end to that line of thought by dragging him to the beach to get both Joaquín and Octavio to explicitly declare how straight and uninterested in Ian they were, and how they both had girlfriends with big tits they would gladly introduce him to. Mickey was embarrassed as fuck, and Ian made him promise to stop assuming stupid shit, or else he’d keep proving him wrong in whatever way would shame him best.

The first year or so, Mickey still didn’t trust that Ian would stay put. He figured the random, uncalled for jealousy was related to that uncertainty. He could tell that Mickey was holding back from him just that little bit, and it gave them a slight edge of uneasiness at certain times. Ian was doing whatever he could to make Mickey feel fully comfortable with him being back in his life, but he supposed it would just take time. Hopefully one day things would start to feel normal again. . . if anything ever really had been ‘normal’ between them at any point. He wasn’t really sure.

Around the time that Ian had started working with Manuel on fishing boats, Francisco had started showing Mickey how to repair ships, and motors, and soon he’d given up construction work for boat work. He took a particular shine to welding, and he even got to help construct a sailboat from scratch. It was way more interesting than erecting walls and creating concrete boxes, and Ian could see that it made Mickey excited about working a legit job for once.

Ian even convinced him to learn how to swim, once and for all, insisting it was stupid not to take advantage of the fact that Ian could take them out to sea on their own sometimes and have nice getaway time, but he didn’t see the point if Mickey wasn’t gonna jump in the water with him and swim around in the endless deep blue. He refused to take him out and let him stay on deck.

Ian wasn’t able to teach Mickey very well himself, despite the fact that he thought it’d be pretty easy, so he’d ended up recruiting _Los Viejitos_ , as he’d dubbed Mickey’s aging friends, to give him lessons in their own inimitable way. That way included a lot of tough love, taunting, and ridicule. It put the pressure on Mickey to end the humiliation of not knowing something those assholes considered basic as swiftly as possible.

It worked.

Ian started taking Mickey out on the boat with him regularly, venturing farther and farther south when they got the chance to take time and explore. They spent Mickey’s 24th birthday cruising the coast, drinking beer, smoking weed, swimming, and doing dirty things to each other when the mood struck. It was the first time he’d ever been able to celebrate the occasion with him, and even though it wasn’t the kind of thing Mickey cared about in the slightest, Ian was into it enough for the both of them. He even made him an American-style homemade cake, with candles and everything. Mickey had never had one before.

As much as he enjoyed living in Mexico, and he knew Mickey did too, they never quite felt like they could stay there forever. They talked about making their way farther south still, working their way through other countries in Central and maybe even South America, but really, Ian knew he wanted to go back to the States. Not without Mickey, and not back to Illinois, but somewhere they could start over and keep in better touch with his family, who he missed more than he liked to think about. He didn’t need to see them every day, or every week, or every month, but it would be nice to be able to visit each other at least once a year. Besides which, he was just plain homesick. Mexico was great in a lot of ways, but they would always be strangers in a strange land there, and certain things just weren’t the same.

He pressed Mickey to explore contacts north of the border that might be able to get him a cover he could live under without so much fear of being captured. He needed to get documents he could live off of legally, and get a job that wouldn’t dig hard enough into the credentials to discover how flimsy the trail was. He also needed to be able to cross into the U.S. without being imprisoned, which would require a coyote to help them.

He finally managed a connection up in Torreón with all the contacts he needed in Ciudad Juárez and in Las Cruces. Ian still had money stashed in the bank for when the need arose (he’d driven that dirty cash, plus his added savings, right across the border and rehoused it in a brand new security box), so he convinced Mickey to make the arrangements and take most of the money to buy them a viable life together in their homeland.

With the rest of the money, Ian decided that they were gonna take a proper vacation. He paid one of the guys who maintained yachts and motorboats for rich people who barely visited their summer homes a good chunk of change in USD to let him borrow a small sailboat for an off-season month. They were gonna have their last days before the big upheaval be an escape from everything. . . One last hurrah.

Mickey was impressed by Ian’s sea prowess, and they had an enjoyable time sailing north to the Bay of California, hitting up Acapulco, Zihuatanejo, Manzanillo, Puerto Vallarta, Mazatlán, Cabo Pulmo, and La Paz. Mickey wouldn’t let him risk going farther north without his new papers. They slept in the cramped quarters below deck, but it was glorious. They even spent some days and nights undocked, instead drifting in the open sea and throwing down an anchor. It made Mickey nervous, but Ian thought it was the most away from it all he’d ever be able to be, and he loved that feeling.

Once they were back to return the pilfered craft, collect their belongings, and say their goodbyes, they were set to head out and leave everything behind for the second time. They packed up the same shitty car they’d stolen back in Oklahoma nearly four years previous, and took their time driving north where they’d eventually cross near El Paso this time, at the very western end of the Texan border. The way the highway ran made it impossible for them to drive up the coast, or reach their meet-up point in Juárez by going in a mostly straight line. They had to make their winding way through the interior, which allowed them to pass through some beautiful mountains and national parks. It also brought them through Mexico City, so Ian routed them slightly east so they could see the famous Aztec ruins of Teotihuacán before they left. They’d seen some smaller Mayan ruins down in Oaxaca, but the giant Pyramid of the Sun was jaw-dropping, and Ian got some good pictures of them climbing it, and also up at the summit.

All in all, the last five weeks they spent as undeclared Mexican residents was an adventurous time, the likes of which they’d never really had again in quite the same way.

Ian relished every moment. 

  


* * *

  


**LAS CRUCES, NEW MEXICO, USA**

Mickey hadn’t really believed Ian was coming to Mexico to be with him until he was actually standing right in front of him. Even then, he wouldn’t have been surprised if he’d awoken one morning to find Ian gone again. Those lingering doubts kept him from fully being present in their relationship for a long while, even though most of the weight had been lifted from his chest, and he was generally pretty fucking happy. Sometime after the first year or so without a major incident, or any indicators of wavering loyalty, it had finally sunk in: Ian was with him, and he wasn’t going anywhere. He’d looked back and realized that after all the years they’d known each other, the ones where they were in some way together, this was was the longest they’d ever lasted without fucking it up.

Two and a half years of their lives passed by in Mexico, and they’d learned how to truly live together. They’d learned how to be open and honest; how to be supportive of each other; how to be comfortable with their relationship in public; even how to fight without using their fists, or making threats, and how to repair things afterwards. They became something solid; a proper unit.

They were real. They were a couple in every way.

One day, around the two year mark of their time spent with sand permanently stuck to their feet, and their hair constantly stiff with sea salt, Ian said something that had almost caused Mickey’s heart to stop.

“I think I wanna go home.”

They’d been lying in a hammock on their cramped porch, heads at opposite ends, Ian’s long legs spread out and hanging over the sides, while Mickey was between them, legs crossed and resting up on Ian’s shoulder.

Mickey’s eyes went immediately wide in panic, and he may have even teared up a little bit instinctively. Ian took note of his expression, and his eyes went wide too.

“No! I didn’t mean it like that! I mean you too. Us! We should go. Not to Chicago! But to the States somewhere. I miss it. I love it here, and if you think we need to stay, we’ll stay, but I think it would be cool if we could repatriate.”

Mickey exhaled loudly and rubbed one of his dirty feet into Ian’s face obnoxiously for scaring him like that. “Fuckin’ dumbass! You almost gave me a fuckin’ coronary.”

Ian batted his foot away and wiped his skin off. “I’m sorry! But forget about that part, do you think we could pull it off?”

Mickey slid a hand over his own face and worried his lip, pondering. “Dunno. Not like I haven’t thought about it, but it’d be tricky. We’d need to get some reliable connections to set it all up. I could ask around, but it’s not gonna be cheap. Your safety deposit stash probly won’t even be enough.”

“Maybe they’ll take a down payment, and we could pay off the rest over time.”

Mickey snorted. “It’d have to be someone hella fuckin’ trusting, and that usually requires a close relationship, or someone irrefutable to vouch for you. I can do some diggin’, but it’ll take time.”

“Okay. What do you think, though? If you’ve thought about it, is it something you want? Obviously, I don’t want you caught. I also don’t want you to turn into some paranoid freak looking over your shoulderevery minute of the day.”

“Iggy and Mandy are pretty sure I’m in the clear. Finally stopped gettin’ harrassed by the cops like 6 months back. No way in hell I’m goin’ back to Chicago, but maybe we could find a spot near the border, so we have that safety net if we gotta run.”

Ian squeezed his waist between his legs to get his eyes focused back on him. “You still haven’t answered the question. What would you rather do?”

Mickey pondered it momentarily. He did like the lives they’d built for themselves down there against all odds, but it wasn’t all a walk in the park. They were still pretty poor. They lived in a tiny run-down place, and the jobs they had would never pay them any more than they already did. This was what it was and what it would remain, should they stay put. He supposed if they wanted to live better, they could dip into Ian’s money, and/or move to some resort town and get jobs with some rich-fuck ex-pats that would pay them well for bilingual tourism work, but that just didn’t feel like them. The States would give them more opportunity and more money, even if Mickey was evading the law. He now had the skills to do proper manual labor that didn’t involve hauling cinder blocks, and Ian could go back to an EMT-type gig. Plus, he did kinda miss his country, if not just because everybody spoke fucking English. He and Ian would always be odd men out here in more ways than one.

“If we can really form an airtight plan, and I can really find a job with someone who’ll look the other way on certain shit, then yeah. I think I’d be down to go back. But like I said. . . has to be a border town, or one close by.”

Ian beamed at him and rocked them from side to side.

Mickey had a steady rapport with a respected dude who handled legal shit for one of the prominent cartels operating just north of them in Michoacán, and he’d helped him set it all up. They’d meet up with his brother in Torreón, and he’d take them to Juárez and hook him up with the person who’d help get them into El Paso. They had yet another brother up in Albuquerque who would set him up with the legal documents, and a manufacturing job in Las Cruces. He balked at how much all that would probably cost him to pull off, but Arquímedes had assured him they’d work it out. His brother would give him a fair rate and payoff arrangement.

“I know I don’t have to explain to you what would happen if you didn’t meet your end of the deal,” he warned Mickey in a casual way that didn’t even have a cold edge to it. The nonchalantness was almost more intimidating, really.

“Of course not. I know the drill. Not gonna fuck with any of you scary bastards.”

“Good,” said Arquímedes with an airy smile. “Keep your redhead safe.”

Mickey’s blood ran cold for just a second and a shiver ran up his spine. “I will,” he answered, with one solemn nod, and they shook on their agreement.

To say that he was nervous about the border crossing was putting it extremely mildly. He didn’t think he could be more freaked out about it than he had been when he was fleeing _into_ the country, but he really was. Everything he had now was _good_. If that got fucked up, he didn’t know what he’d do. He couldn’t go back to fuckin’ jail. They wouldn’t ever let him out after the shit he pulled. At the very least, they’d tack another ten to twenty years onto his sentence, and that might as well be forever. He’d probably end up shanked by one asshole or another, anyway, before he even got a shot at parole. And if anything happened to Ian because of him, he’d never be able to forgive himself.

Ian could sense his creeping distress, of course, so he’d set up this huge crazy scheme that involved them vacationing on a small boat for full fucking month, like they were some leisurely well-to-doers without a single care in the world. It was alarmingly successful at relaxing him, and he was worried that his guard had dropped too far to keep his edges sharp. As they made their way north in their car, he’d started tensing back up, but then Ian would drive them through some majestic mountains, or make him get out and stroll through a cool cloud forest, or take him to some ancient cultural structure, and that would even him out again.

He’d never felt luckier in his life than he did the first night they spent in a crap motel up in Las Cruces. It wasn’t even an hour away from El Paso, so they’d driven straight up as soon as they parted ways with the coyote. Barely a word had been spoken since they’d left Juárez, their breaths too busy being held. It was after 4 AM when they’d collapsed onto the bed in that shabby room off the highway, and he practically shook with relief. They were thoroughly exhausted, yet simultaneously keyed up from their victory. They laughed giddily and fucked passionately, then fell asleep for over twelve hours, maintaining a tight embrace.

Ian bleached Mickey’s hair out and dyed it a dirty blond color the next night. He’d end up keeping it that way for years, as a precaution, and it was how he appeared on his new driver’s license along with his new moniker of ‘Michael Wilson.’

The job he was hooked up with was on a manufacturing line, but since he was a welder, he was able to get a quick certification and move into a position where he could apply that skill, since multiple components produced at the plant were metal. That kept him content at first, despite the decidedly drearier environment than his previous workplace.

Ian was able to go back to being an EMT with relative ease, and after a while, he began studying to become a paramedic. A couple years later he was able to move into that job role.

They ended up staying put in New Mexico for four relatively quiet years, and despite missing their beachside fun, things stayed good. Ian had a couple of iffy moments where med adjustments were needed, when he’d been stressed out with school and work, but nothing too major, and he got through it well enough.

On Mickey’s 26th birthday, Ian came home with ‘Mickey’ tattooed on his chest in the same spot he’d had ‘Ian’ inked on years ago. It was the best present ever. They were so stupidly gone on one another.

He couldn’t believe what his life had become. It was, despite the underlying threat of exposure or capture, pretty goddamn normal. Mickey had even joined a bowling league with some of the dudes from work, which put him hanging out with an age set approximately ten to twenty years younger than his previous crew of _viejos en la playa_. Ian still found his attachment to older people amusing. He couldn’t explain why he felt less comfortable around people closer to his age, that’s just the way it was. Ian could keep his outings with similarly aged buddies from work and school, and Mickey would escape for low-key camaraderie with his grizzled group of co-laborers.

All in all, aside from their immediate environment, the biggest change had been the way they were able to reconnect with their families.

Ian was able to fly out to Chicago pretty soon after they’d arrived back. He’d driven over to Phoenix first, and flown out and back from there; another precaution in case the cops kept tabs on his presence in Illinois. It was the first time they’d really been separated since they’d reunited in Oaxaca, and Mickey couldn’t help the ball of dread that bloomed inside of him, that fed on thoughts of Ian getting so attached to the Gallaghers again that he’d realize he needed to stay. But he had returned enthusiastically, and with a renewed brightness of spirit that made Mickey happy by proxy, despite hating every day they were apart.

Ian also bore unexpected news about Mickey’s estranged child and ex-wife.

“So, I saw Svetlana.”

Mickey’s eyebrows went sky-high. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Ian said softly, nodding and looking away.

“You see the kid?”

He met his eyes again. “Yes.”

Mickey felt a tingling in his stomach. “And?”

“And. . . he’s so fucking big, Mick, and beautiful. He looks just like you when you were that age. He’s 6 fucking years old now. Six! Can you believe it?”

“Yeah, I was aware.” He rubbed his lip absently and took out a cigarette.

“Look, I actually had a long talk with her, and I think Svet wants you. . . us. . . to be a part of Yev’s life again.”

“How the fuck would that work?”

“Well, long-distance at first. We’ll Skype with them and get Yev used to who we are. He does know us, believe it or not. Svet kept some photos from the early days in a picture book and told him about us. Surprised the shit outta me, but I guess she cares more than she likes to let on. She’s selling the Alibi back to Kev, and moving to Boston with some guy. She just had another baby too, but not for herself. I guess she’s planning on being a surrogate and popping out kids for people every couple years. Said it’s just to line her own personal savings in case things go south with the guy. I guess he wants to support her. Thinks she’s some do-gooder. You know how she is, everything is at least half a con. Anyway, point is. . . I told her a lot about what we’ve been up to since we left Chicago and I think she believes we’d be good for Yev. So, we start talking to him, and then one day, we fly them out for a visit? Reconnect?”

Mickey exhaled his smoke heavily through his nose. “I don’t know, Ian.”

“Why not?”

“Because, man. . . lotta time has gone by. I mean, why not just let it lie? Kid’ll be fine without my outlaw ass wavin’ at him on a camera every couple weeks.”

“Mickey, it isn’t just about that. It’s. . . he’s your son. He deserves to know you. You’ve become a good person. I don’t care if you’re on the run. That kind of shit doesn’t scare Svetlana, so it won’t scare him either. He doesn’t even have to know anything about that.”

“Why do you care so much?”

Ian shrugged. “You need to get some family back into your life.”

“Mandy’s comin’ out from Pittsburgh in like a month,” he pointed out.

“Yeah, and it’s gonna be fucking great, but maybe one sister isn’t enough. Your son needs you, and whether you know it or not, you need your son.”

Ian’s words marinated in Mickey’s brain for weeks. He even talked it over with Mandy when she was in town. It was a surprisingly heartfelt reunion, and any of the resentment he’d held toward her for not visiting him in prison had immediately dissipated when she burst into tears as they hugged for the first time in years. The three of them had partied for four days straight, before she had to leave again. They talked practically every day now, at least by text. She agreed with Ian that he should take advantage of Svetlana’s openness and try to be some kind of a father, even if it was from afar and half-assed.

It had been awkward at first, but eventually he’d eased into it, with a lot of help from Ian. He was in awe merely over the fact that Yev could talk so well. He was a smart kid too, and Mickey could already tell he’d make himself into something way better than either of his parents would ever be, no matter how hard they tried. Knowing that Yevgeny was a part of him made him feel proud in a way that he’d never experienced before.

As usual, Ian always knew what was best for him. Mickey needed to get used to that.

  


* * *

  


**DENVER, COLORADO, USA**

When Ian was 27, and Mickey was 29, they moved one state up to be in a more happening city. Mickey finally felt at ease enough to not have to be an hour away from the Mexican border. They’d made it four years without so much as a close call, and they’d finally paid off the Mexican gangsters that had helped smuggle them into the States and get Mickey the highest quality forged identity credentials possible.

The general manager of the plant Mickey worked at in Las Cruces set him up with a close friend in Denver where he could transfer to, and Ian was able to land another paramedic job before they even left, giving his interview remotely.

They were even able to find a cute house with affordable rent to live in, with a privacy fence in the back, and enough small trees and foliage to keep the front from seeming so open. Ian knew that Mickey appreciated feeling secure, so little things like that helped immensely. Eventually, Mickey’d even stopped dying his hair the lighter shade, and it was hot to see him back in black. He’d also given up his bowling hobby with the good ol’ boys back home for poker nights with the ones from the plant up here, but Ian was a bit of a killjoy in terms of restricting the amount that Mickey could gamble away. Those dudes had years of experience on him, and at first he just wasn’t learning from all the ass-kickings he took every week. Ian had to put his foot down, like some harping housewife who kept track of every nickel and dime.

About a year in, Ian had a bad spell where he started acting a little bit manic-y for a couple weeks, then nosedived into a depression that hadn’t hit so hard in many years. Mickey took care of him, and when he came out of it, he declared that he wanted to become a registered nurse. He needed a lower-pressure job than what the paramedic role was giving him, so he went back to school again.

A couple years later, he was working in a hospital with an understanding director and manager that allowed him to be on rotation for day shifts only to help alleviate and manage his bipolar symptoms. It was such a huge relief to finally have a set schedule, not having to do any overnights and swing shifts. It didn’t necessarily make him popular with some of his co-workers at first, but his feeling of greater stability was worth it.

Sometimes Ian still daydreamed about the days he and Mickey had spent in Mexico, and he’d miss the ocean so keenly that it almost ached, but he was glad they’d moved on with their lives. The things they had now, and the things they were still building, never would’ve been possible down there. He was glad they’d taken the risk to return. It had been more than worth it. And maybe Ian had some ideas about one day settling somewhere along the Pacific coast. Maybe in northern California where Lip was. He was an engineer at a tech company near San Jose, and the only other Gallagher that had bailed on Chicago.

The best thing about being back in America, was that he was able to see his siblings with enough frequency to keep him satisfied. Usually, at least one or two of them would come visit for Christmas, and sometimes someone would come out during the summer. They’d even gotten Svetlana to bring Yev out a couple times, and those reunions had been emotional, but sweet. Ian was glad that he helped bring them back together.

He maintained most of the direct contact with Svet, seeing as he was much better at communicating with her without it devolving into too many traded barbs and insults to count, but Mickey talked to Yevgeny on the phone and over video all the time.

After her previous relationship had failed, Svetlana had done another round of surrogacy for another couple, and had also donated her own eggs for the first time to get a bigger payoff. Sometime during the pregnancy, she met another guy who’d eventually moved her and Yev out to Seattle.

This time, she wouldn’t live without an occupation, so she started slinging specialty cocktails at boho-classy type establishments, and also decided to squeeze out a fourth kid for yet another couple, donating her eggs again. Ian was in awe of her ability to go through that painstaking process, only to give the babies away every time, but she said it didn’t bother her at all. She enjoyed being pregnant and Yevgeny was enough for her. She didn’t want to devote her life to raising another kid. Once he was grown, she would reclaim her independence, and that was something she looked forward to. Ian kept whispering in her ear that she should move to Denver, but she would always counter with, “You move to Seattle.” He figured it was a fair enough response.

Even though their families were now scattered all over the country, and only floated in and out of their lives, it was a relief to have those lifelines. It proved to Ian that he’d made the right choice when he’d asked Mickey to risk everything and come back. Even though the fear of being found out was always circulating somewhere in the back of their minds, they’d survived the most dangerous hurdles related to Mickey’s starting over as someone new.

After ten years of wondering whether the other shoe would drop had gone by without incident, they finally felt like they didn’t have to wonder anymore.

They were safe, they were together, and they knew they had it in them to do almost anything.


	2. After the Dust Settled

“Hey Mick, you ever think about having another kid?”

“Do I what now?”

“You know, like the two of us. With a kid. That’s ours. And everything that entails, I guess.”

“What, like get married?”

“I guess. If we want to be able to use insurance to have it and have all our parental rights and everything. Yeah, we’d probly have to.”

Mickey exhaled heavily. “What makes you think I’m any more fit to be a full-time parent now than I was back then, huh?”

“Oh, please. You’re practically a different person. Actually. . . that’s not even true. You’re just allowed to be more of who you really are now. You’d be a good dad, asshole. I wouldn’t wanna have a baby with you if I had any doubts.”

“Where the hell is this coming from all of a sudden? I thought only chicks had those phases where they get the big urge to procreate. Is this about Yev callin’ me Dad last time he was in town?”

“Yes and no. I grew up with kids and babies everywhere all the time. I kind of like it. I miss it. I miss that time we spent with Yev when he was little. Even with all that chaos around us, and how young we were, we did an okay job. It’s been quiet for us for a long time, and we’re in as good a place as we can be. Why not just go for it? If we don’t do it now, we’ll never do it.”

“What are you talkin’ about, you’re not even out of your 20s yet, and I’m barely over 30. There’s a lotta shit we could still do without kids weighin’ us down.”

Ian snorted. “Oh yeah, like what? Travel? It’s too risky and stressful. Mick, you and I both know we’re pretty much settled. We can’t exactly move around freely and broadly, so we have to make _here_ stay worthwhile.”

“Really? You’re gonna use my fugitive status to try and talk me into procreating with you? Pretty sure that should be a big strike _against_ , not _for_. And how did you plan on doin’ it exactly, anyways? I think you know I can’t get pregnant with an ass-baby or we’d already be screwed.”

Instead of laughing at his joke, Ian got quiet, which only made Mickey suspicious.

“Ian?”

“I’ve been talking to Svetlana. . .”

“No.”

“Mickey. . . hear me out on this. . .”

“You wanna drag Svet back into our lives now? She’s not the only chick in America who has babies for other people. There are other surrogates. . .”

“That we know and trust? That we can afford? And pass all background checks for completely, without having to worry about them discovering you? We have a history with her, and she’s already the mother of your first child. She’s already in our lives anyway, and this would also be a chance for her and Yev to be in them even more. We can put all the bad blood behind us for good, once and for all.”

“I can’t believe you talked to her about this first.”

“I didn’t do it on purpose. It just sort of happened. I mean, when we talk on the phone lately, she talks about her pregnancy. It’s kind of unavoidable. And she asked me if I ever wanted to. . . and I said maybe. . . and then I thought I should ask you. So I did. It’s not a big deal.”

“Not a big deal? Us havin’ kids together is a pretty huge fuckin’ deal.”

“I meant the whole not telling you first thing. Don’t try to act bent out of shape over that, because it’s nothing. So just tell me what you think. Honestly, I wanna know.”

“I don’t know. I really haven’t thought about doin’ it all again. I just figured that wasn’t somethin’ we were gonna try for. Didn’t know you wanted it after everything.”

“Well. . . I mean, I think you should be the one to father the first kid, biologically.”

Mickey whipped his head around. “What? But. . . I already have Yev. You’re the one who’s all gung-ho, wannabe daddy. Should be your bio kid.”

“I just. . . I’m still worried about all that. Passing down my genes. . . Monica’s genes. . . fuckin’ Frank’s shitty family’s genes are just as bad. I don’t even have to know my real dad very well, I’ve met my grandmother. And I know you hate your dad, and so do I, but Yev is great. Nothing bad got into him, and he’s super-smart.”

“Ian, you’d have a great kid. And it’d be all cute, and red, and freckly.”

“I just don’t think I’m ready for that. But I know I’d love your kid. I love Yev. And I wanna see him more. I know you do too, whatever you say. He’s almost 13 now. It’s a good age for you to re-enter his life in a more steady and stable way. And don’t even pretend like you were never freckly. You’re the palest black-hair on the entire planet.”

“I don’t fuckin’ get it. You think Svetlana’s gonna uproot her life to bring Yev here and have a baby for us?”

“I think she could be persuaded, yeah. She’s single again, and she’s seen one too many of her arrangements go up in flames. We could convince her it’s the right thing, but only if you step up. You’ll have to be the one to talk her into it, so if you’re not gonna get on board, then neither will she.”

“And then you’ll just hate me forever I guess? That’ll be fuckin’ fun.”

“No, Mick. It’s not a trap. I’m just telling you how I feel.”

“And what if I said yes, but only if you were the biological dad?”

“Why would that make a difference to your answer?”

“I mean, you’ve just decided a lot of things for me, it seems like.”

“I didn’t decide anything. I came up with an idea for a plan to run by you. That’s how it works.”

“So you just wanna have one kid?”

Ian shrugged.

“Mmhmm. . .” Mickey continued knowingly, “We’re not havin’ a buncha kids runnin’ around here like some kinda orphanage. This ain’t gonna be the Gallagher house on Wallace Street.”

“I was thinkin’ just two would be nice. When Yev’s around, it’ll be three.”

“Jesus, Red. . . You wanna saddle me with three children. . . _Me_ of all people.”

“Yeah, Mick, I do. Two boys and a girl would be cute, right?”

“What if I said yes to donating sperm for the first one, but only if you promise to donate yours for the second?”

“Um, maybe if you stop calling it _donating_? It’s not a goddamn charity, it’s us having a kid with our own genetic materials.”

Mickey rolled his eyes. “And I wanna have the second one within two years of the first one, max. I’m gonna be too old to deal with that shit way sooner than I wanna even think about, so we do ‘em both back-to-back and get it over with.”

Ian smiled widely. “Sounds like you’re kind of into it.”

“I mean, we can talk about it. I’m just sayin’ if it happens, then this is the only way.”

“Will you call Lana tomorrow? We can Skype her together if you want.”

“I’ll call her. I need to talk to the kid. Make sure he still doesn’t hate me.”

“He doesn’t hate you.”

“You don’t fuckin’ know that. We don’t know shit. This is exactly why you shouldn’t wanna have kids with my ass. I barely even see the one I already got.”

“That’s not completely your fault, though. . . too much happened with Yev, and right after Yev. . . but you can try to make it up. And you can do better next time.”

“Alright, all this talk has been really sexy right before bedtime, but I’m gonna call it a night and ask you not to grab my dick for once. Or my ass.”

“Fine, but I expect you to make it up to me in the morning.”

A silence settled between them for a few long minutes.

“Ian?”

“Hmm?”

“Did we get engaged just now?”

“Mmm. . . I’m not sure. Guess it depends on if we’re gonna have the kids.”

“So you don’t wanna get married if we don’t have kids?”

“Hadn’t thought about it. What would the reason be?”

“All the other shit people say when they’re into marriage, I guess. Fuck should I know?”

“I’ll make an honest man outta ya if you want me to, _Michael Wilson_. Just say the word.”

Mickey let the dig slide. “Whatever happens, ain’t gettin’ you an engagement ring.”

“Pretty sure dudes don’t do that anyway.”

“No like promise ring or anything gay like that.”

“You already have my name tattooed over your stupid gay heart. That’s enough of a gesture.”

“Stop havin’ the last word.”

“You stop.”

“I fuckin’ hate you.”

“You love me. And our future children.”

  


* * *

  


“You sure you wanna do all this?”

“You’re askin’ me this now? Relax. Of course I wanna do it.”

“But you’re really sure? You’re not just doing it for me?”

“Of course I’m doin’ it for you, dumbass, but I’m not like _against_ it or anything.”

Ian quirked a smile. “So you _do_ want it.”

“How many times are you gonna make me answer the same fuckin’ question? Jesus fuckin’ Christ! Just tell me what I need to do to prove I mean what I’m sayin’.”

“Alright, alright. I get it. I just don’t wanna feel like I pressured you into doing what I want, and then have you get all resentful later because you didn’t really wanna do it. I always make all the big decisions for us.”

“I don’t mind. I don’t want for much. Whatever you want is usually fine with me. You’re the captain of this ship. _Capitán Rojo_.”

They chuckled.

“Oh my god, you haven’t called me that in a million years. Man. . . I miss sailing. I miss Mexico.”

“Yeah. It was a good time. Fuckin’ weird where life has taken us, huh?”

“No way we would’ve ever predicted it when we first got together.”

“Fuck no. Been a lotta twists and turns.”

Ian kissed Mickey’s ‘U-UP’ hand. “Worth it.”

“You really sure about _my_ ass?”

“This would be a weird point for me to lose interest.”

“You know what I mean.”

“What, you mean am I sure about marrying an outlaw? Well, look at this way, they won’t be able to make me testify against you if you ever get nabbed.”

“What kinda answer is that?”

“Mick, I proposed to you.”

“No you didn’t.”

“Well, you sure as hell didn’t propose to me, I would remember.”

“No one really proposed to anyone, we just sorta. . . decided.”

“Are you actually worried that I don’t wanna get married?”

“Maybe I’m just more curious about your motivations.”

“My motivations? Mickey, what the fuck are you talking about?”

“You’re not just doin’ this so you can have a baby?”

“Well. . . yeah. . . mostly. . . you know that. What’s the problem?”

Mickey remained ominously silent.

“Wait. . . Mick, I wanna marry _you_ , so I can have a baby with _you_. I only want any of it because of you. I wouldn’t want it without you. I wanna marry you and have a baby with you, because I love you. So stop being fucking weird, and let’s do this.”

“Can’t believe you invited our stupid families. Wouldn’t be gettin’ all nervous if those fuckers weren’t hangin’ around.”

“Just focus on me. It’s a quickie ceremony at the courthouse. It’ll be over in no time. Then we get to celebrate with everyone we love in one place for the first time since we were teenagers. Didn’t think that was gonna be possible.”

“Yeah, okay. Stop bein’ so sentimental. Just cuz we’re gettin’ hitched today, it’s no reason to get all fuckin’ soft.”

Ian booped his nose, then punched him in the shoulder. “Shut the fuck up. Come on, it’s time.”

He rose and reached out a hand for Mickey to grab onto.

“Shit. Okay. Let’s do this.”

  


* * *

  


“Holy shit! She’s pregnant!”

“What?”

“It took! She confirmed it with her OB!”

“Fuck.”

“Thank you, so much, Svet!” Ian said into the phone, tears welling up in his eyes. “You’re so amazing! We love you!”

Mickey just stood there listening and looking dumbstruck.

“Yeah, yeah, I’ll call you back in a bit. Okay! Okay. Bye.” He looked up at Mickey again, and rushed forth to kiss him ardently. “Mick, we’re gonna have our own little human running around here soon. You ready for that?”

“Shit. Ready as I’ll ever be, I guess.”

Ian squeezed his face between his big hands. “We’ll get you readier. It’s gonna be so great. I’m positive about it.”

“I think I need to sit down. Maybe smoke a joint.”

“You okay? Can’t back out now. Conception is done and gestation has begun.”

“I think I’ll be fine once I get this weed in me, and you talk my ear off about it until I get excited too.”

Ian smiled. “I can do that. I’ll even rub your feet with that magnesium coconut oil shit that you like.”

“Now we’re talkin’. Get over here.”

They passed the joint back and forth at first, then Mickey finished the rest himself.

“Remember how you said that Mexico was our first and last great adventure?” asked Ian.

“Yeah.”

“Well, that wasn’t true. This is the next one.”

Mickey finally looked up into Ian’s handsome, earnest, elated face, and smiled.


	3. First New Kid

Their first new kid ended up coming just shy of two years after deciding to have it in the first place. Ian had been 31 for a couple months, and Mickey was 33. Svetlana was pushing 36, but still going strong in the baby-making department. Yevgeny would be 15 soon, and Mickey was happy to report he still showed no signs of totally hating his guts for all the ways he’d fucked up and been absent from his life so far, or for being queer and not wanting anything to do with his mom in the customary ways. He was pretty sure it was only because Yev loved Ian so much that some of that affection spilled over to him by proxy. Mickey understood that feeling. He figured it was probably the same effect Ian had had on him when Yev was born, and they started living together back at the Milkovich house on Zemansky. There’s a lot of shit he never would’ve really gotten over at the time had it not been for Ian. Which was a sad irony, considering everything that followed in the year to come, and a few years after that.

The last couple months leading up to the birth were spent fiercely arguing over baby names. They knew they were expecting a boy, but Ian kept wanting to give it some kind of hippie-ass _unique_ name that made Mickey’s eyes roll into the great beyond. The last big stand-off had been over Ian’s hard vote for the name Lennon, as if he were some kinda Beatles fanboy all of a sudden.

“It just sounds cool. Sophisticated.”

Mickey snorted. “You can’t use the kid’s name to make us seem classier. Nice try though. Besides, you name it Lennon, and I’m just gonna end up callin’ it Lenny all the time, like that dumb guy in _Of Mice and Men_. And if it doesn’t remind people of that, it’ll remind ‘em of a gangster. Lenny from the block.”

“Lenny from the block?” Ian chortled. “That’s a fucking Jennifer Lopez song, dipshit. Ooh, scary.”

“You really want me callin’ our kid Lenny? It’s like an old man’s name. I ain’t callin’ him Lennon. We need a simple, normal, classic name.”

“Never exactly pegged you for a traditionalist, Mick. Besides, your real full name is some unpronounceable Ukrainian thing it turns out, and you gave Svetlana so much shit for Yevgeny.”

“All the more reason to give this kid a clean slate. We have a nice normal last name. We can find some basic-ass boy’s name that we both like.”

They were both Gallaghers now. Ian had been surprised, to put it mildly, about how easy it was to convince him not only to get married in the first place, but to also change his name so that they’d both have the same surname as their kids. Not like Mickey could actually be a Milkovich anymore anyway, so of course he’d rather be linked to his actual family, rather than continue under some random assumed name that meant nothing. He had already started using Michael as a first name, so it wouldn’t be weird and Ian could keep calling him Mickey. Officially, he was now Michael Gallagher, loving father and devoted gay husband.

They ended up naming the kid Benjamin Alexander.

“Oh my god, we can call him Benji for short,” trilled Ian, when they’d started to align in agreement. “It’ll be so fuckin’ cute!”

“Nah, that’s that stupid little dog’s name. We’ll call him Benny. Sounds tougher.”

“What, like _Benny and the Jets_? Now you’re just playing into gay stereotypes. Here’s our son: tough as an Elton John song.”

Mickey tried his best to hold in the laughter bubbling up. He couldn’t help the smile, anyway. “Fuck off.”

“Besides, what’s the big difference between Benny and Lenny, except one letter?”

Mickey rolled his eyes. “Whatever, I said fuck off.”

“Little Benji Gallagher,” Ian said fondly, grinning. “Fuck yeah.”

“We could still go with Henry. That’s a strong name.”

“Nope. Maybe next time.”

“Fuck that!” replied Mickey. “Next time, we get a girl, or we send it back.”

“Really? You want a girl that badly?”

“I don’t know. Might be good to have one person with less testosterone around here. A soft little ginger girl to kick all our asses.”

“Let’s think of the hypothetical children later and focus on this one. Benjamin Alexander.”

“Still think it’s too long.”

“It’s fine. He’ll go by Ben at school, and it’s not like he’s gonna go around writing his middle name on everything all the time. This way it’s a family name, it’s just not that weird spelling and pronunciation. He’ll be kinda named after you too.”

Once Benji was born, Ian doted on him in such a way that if it weren’t for the unmistakable jet-black hair and signature icy blue eyes, Mickey would wonder if Ian had somehow independently decided to get his own semen sample into Svetlana after all.

In the beginning, he acted so much more like the biological father that it was making Mickey look bad, even though he was doing absolutely nothing wrong. It’s just that apparently aside from having an inner dad in him, Ian also seemed to have an inner mother. He was like some kind of parental all-in-one machine, and Mickey felt inadequate by comparison. A hint of a cry in the night, and Ian was there, no matter how dead tired he’d been when his head hit the pillow. It was like some auto-pilot zombie response that Mickey just didn’t have in him naturally. He was pretty sure that without Ian around, the poor kid would wail all through the night, and Mickey would sleep right through it. Then he’d probably end up growing up a serial killer or something from not getting enough attention when he was in distress.

Ian was perfect for a while. The golden father. Mickey had even built up a decent amount of resentment over all of it, but of course, that’s when Ian crashed. . . right when Mickey was gonna lay it all out on the table and settle the score. He woke up the very next day after deciding to say something, and Ian was all but catatonic, refusing to get up. It had been years since he’d been thrown off balance, and his meds had been working steadily just as they were supposed to.

In the end, Mickey didn’t have to say anything, he just ended up proving his worth as a parent to both of them by stepping up to the plate while Ian was down. Svetlana and Debbie also proved themselves by showing up when they were really needed. Mickey would’ve lost his mind if he’d had to handle both the baby and ‘depressed mode’ Ian alone. The results would’ve been disastrous.

Despite everyone trying their very hardest to convince Mickey that Ian’s episode wasn’t his fault, it wasn’t really something he could accept or agree with. He should’ve known Ian was doing too much on a schedule that was too erratic and made no sense for him. Even not knowing, he should’ve just made more of an effort. He should’ve pushed himself to match Ian’s involvement and enthusiasm, even in the dead of night. Who else’s fault could it be? Mickey could’ve avoided Ian reaching that tipping point that put him on the other side of ‘maintaining.’ Ian could’ve had a brief sad spell without it being so extreme.

Luckily, it only ended up being a couple of rocky months, even though going through them felt so much longer than that.

Mickey lied on his side, in bed, studying Ian’s face at the very tail-end of the worst part of the down-swing, gently stroking the skin above his hip as Ian lied on his back, staring up at the ceiling; Benji curled up between them, sleeping soundly. He was emitting that awesome clean baby smell that made it impossible for his dads not to soften.

“Still wanna have a kid that’s biologically mine?” Ian croaked with a derisive little laugh.

Mickey didn’t hesitate, though. “Yeah, actually, I do.”

Another hollow laugh. “You don’t mean that. You just saw. . . you don’t wanna do that to our unborn kid. Give ‘em that big of a risk.”

“Why not? People have way worse shit wrong with them and still have kids. You act like bein’ a dad is condemning any offspring you have to a life of misery and ruin, and that’s fuckin’ bullshit. Just look at yourself. Where you are now, compared to where you used to be. _Who_ you are. . . you’re not a selfish, stubborn, prick anymore. This all happened because you were bein’ too caring and lookin’ out for us so hard you neglected yourself. It’s my fault for not doin’ more. It’s not gonna happen again. I promise.”

“Mickey,” Ian said more softly, grabbing his hand and holding it lightly. “It’s not your fault that my brain is fucked up, and you definitely can’t control whether it happens again. All we can do is manage it the best we can.”

“Exactly. Listen to yourself. I know you want a kid. I know you’re scared, but deep down, you want it more. Just let yourself have that. We’ll figure the rest out later. Besides, I lived up to my end of the bargain. You owe me a redhead in the next year and a half. We gotta book Svet’s guest womb in advance, and she’s gonna have to decommission that thing soon.”

Mickey was pleased to be able to pull a genuine belly laugh out of Ian finally. He’d managed a nice sincere full smile at the baby a couple days prior. It was major progress.

“I can’t believe you remembered that stupid-ass pun from a million years ago,” mused Ian.

“Yeah, well, there weren’t a lot of good moments to hold onto around then. God, Yev was so little. Like barely older than Benji.”

“I remember. I. . . I’m sorry I fucked everything up back then. With all this.”

Mickey sighed. “Don’t do that whole deal again. It’s been too long, I don’t need another apology for the past. You always wanna talk about every bad thing you ever did when you’re comin’ out of these moods, but I don’t think it does any good. This time, you just gotta focus on the kid. He needs you. I need you. I can’t be a single parent, man, I was drownin’ after like 24 hours of you hittin’ a wall.”

“I’m so sorry, Mick,” Ian replied thickly, and he could tell that he was crying again.

Mickey reached over to wipe his tears. “Stop apologizing. Please. And don’t cry anymore. We’re okay. You’re gonna be okay. Just get better.”

Soon enough, things returned to normal again, but Mickey was more present. He made Ian agree to lean on him for whatever he needed to keep from backsliding, whether it meant equal parenting duties or slightly more for Mickey. He’d do anything to keep Ian feeling sane, and happy, and healthy. Even be more of a dad than he ever thought he had in him to begin with. Conventional methods or not, Ian always had a way of making Mickey better.

By the time Ben was walking, he was raring for baby number two.


	4. Second New Kid

Their second new kid came three months before Benji’s second birthday. Svetlana had taken a rest after his birth to stay un-pregnant long enough to try and bag a significant other that didn’t want to use her to satisfy their pervy kinks. She ended up with a woman, which Ian found comforting somehow. He supposed he had problems trusting straight guys, and adding his unborn child to the mix wouldn’t ease his mind.

Just like before, Ian and Mickey bickered over what they’d call their latest boy. They’d been a bit moody since they’d discovered that yet another penis was entering their lives. Ian was taken aback by how upset he was hearing the news.

“Another little shit-kicker, eh?” Mickey tried to start wisecracking as soon as they were on their own, not wanting Svet or the doctor to be privy to their thoughts on the matter. But Ian knew he’d been wishing for a girl too.

“This is bullshit!” Ian exclaimed loudly as they walked toward their car, surprising them both. Mickey’s eyebrows were doing that extra-high thing they did when he was at a loss. “Why can’t we. . . why’d we have to. . .”

“Relax, Red. So it’s not a girl. You really care that much?”

“Yes! No! I don’t know! I didn’t think I cared, but maybe I do. It’s not fucking fair! Boys are assholes! They’re gonna be such a pain when they’re older. They’re gonna send us to a goddamn early grave. A girl would’ve been so. . . so sweet, and she’d be all spoiled and cute.”

“Yeah, she would. When she’s little. But then think about what Mandy and Debbie were like when they were 15. Not exactly a fuckin’ delightful walk in the park.”

Ian’s face quickly morphed from dejected to horrified. “Yeah, didn’t think about that part.”

“Yeah, so. . . fuck it. Girls ain’t shit. We’re havin’ another boy, so you need to deal with it. Can’t resent your own flesh and blood for not comin’ out the way you wanted. That would just be the ultimate hypocrisy.”

“Fuck you. I know you wanted a girl too. Don’t deny it.”

“Maybe I did, but that ain’t what we’re gettin’, so let’s just gear up for another little terror.”

They spent the last month of gestation going back and forth about the name. Mickey was really holding out for Darren, which Ian ixnayed hard.

“This is just you trying to get something close to Daryl, just because you like the fuckin’ dude from _Walking Dead_ , and you’ve been binging it on Netflix lately.”

“What? No it isn’t.” He made that twisted up ‘you’re crazy’ face that drove Ian up the wall sometimes.

“Yeah it is! You’d call him Darry or something, and that sounds like a redneck name. We’re not gonna have a little redneck kid!”

“Pretty sure a name doesn’t make you a redneck, numbnuts.”

“You were worried that Lennon would give the impression that we were uppity and trying to be above our station, so I’m saying that Daryl isn’t is a good name, because it sounds like the opposite, and Darren is too close to Daryl.”

“I still got Henry in my back pocket from last time.”

“Oh yeah. Why didn’t you bring that up sooner?”

“Got distracted with Darren.”

“Blech. No. Henry it is. I still like Vincent, though.”

“Good. Henry Vincent. Done.”

To say that Mickey completely lost his shit when tiny, squishy Henry came out looking all ‘alien ginger’ just like Ian would be a vast understatement. He’d spent the entire nine months hoping against hope, opining about the possibility to Ian 24/7, as if it were interesting to him in any way. Ian had been hoping for more of a strawberry blond, with a slightly darker complexion; so he, on the other hand, was dismayed. They made a lot of jokes to Svet about how she had the most recessive physical genes of all time, but Ian was still irked.

His poor son even had those natural curls that made Ian’s young life before discovering a flat iron and gel fucking hell. He could already hear all the taunts Henry was gonna have to endure in the schoolyard. He could already see the awkward in-between years of looking all weird and gawky, covered in freckles. Kids were fucking assholes about freckles. Said all kinds of mean shit just based on that characteristic alone. Add on the pale skin, the clown-adjacent hair, and if he also ended up with Ian’s crazy-ass giant teeth that didn’t even fit into his mouth until he was a couple years into his teens, well that was just one more thing to get his ass kicked over. This poor fucking kid.

Mickey thought he was the most adorable child ever to walk the earth. As if his previous spawn were just alright in comparison.

Henry made Mickey so fucking happy that Ian started to get annoyed at their attachment early on. He even started getting peeved over Yev _not_ being peeved. Not over the new baby, not even over the one before it.

Yevgeny was 16, and primed for that time in life when he should be lashing out about all his grievances with his parents about the past, but Yev turned out more mild-mannered than any Milkovich on public record. His last name may be Fisher now, but he looked just like Mickey, only taller. He was already approaching the same height as Ian, with at least one growth spurt left to go. Mickey was always talking about being ready for the time when the teen would finally reach peak misanthrope, and unleash some big torrent of hate upon them, but it just kept not coming. Ian was under the impression that Mickey wanted it to happen, because he felt like he deserved to be punished for shit he thought he’d never truly atoned for. Ian kept trying to show him that he was waiting in vain.

Yev was a quiet, thoughtful kid. He had friends, but liked to keep to himself, and he never got into any real trouble. The family was having a hard time trying to relate to him, but somehow Ian got through. They started signing up for all these rugged outdoor activities together, and Ian taught him how to shoot a gun, but like, all proper, at a legal range. Once Yev was comfortable and knew what he was doing, they started driving out to deserted places to shoot with Mickey, so he’d be able to share it with his eldest son, and have something over on Svetlana too.

Mickey always talked like Ian was the cool dad, and Mickey was the lame one or something. He didn’t know how that started, but it wasn’t true. Ian couldn’t help it that the Milkovich kids were drawn to him. They all knew he was a big sucker for their dark hair and cute scowls.

Having Benji toddling around while they were focused on keeping little-bitty Henry alive that first year was an Augean task on some days, and required both Ian and Mickey to act as a dedicated response team.

Ian had been able to take parental leave for the first three months of Henry’s life, but Mickey only got one. It had gone the same way when Benji was born. Luckily, the hospital Ian worked at had an on-site daycare center, which is where they both stayed while both men worked. Ian was able to stop by and check in on them on his lunch breaks, and give Henry a bottle, or play with blocks on the floor with Ben. At the end of the day, he’d gather them up, pick up Mickey from the plant, and head home to the controlled chaos of their evening routine.

Weekends never felt like the end of anything anymore, but they were still the best days of the week. It was a bit like having a second job, but the staff was priceless. Ian tried to hold onto the positive when he felt overwhelmed.

The two years they’d spent raising one small child were harried enough, but the addition of another even smaller child left them positively frazzled. Ian figured the first baby, plus his experience growing up in the Gallagher household would have prepared him, but he was dead fucking wrong. The only thing he wasn’t wrong about was the fact the Mickey was excellent dad material.

Ian loved the way Mickey looked pacing around in old gray sweatpants and a spit-up stained tank-top, cradling Henry against his chest and shoulder, sometimes humming softly in his little ear. Usually that meant that Ian was busy keeping Benji occupied enough that he wouldn’t try to follow them around getting underfoot, agitating the baby before he could doze off.

Introducing the brothers to one another had been a fucking trip and a half, and probably one of the best moments of Ian’s life in its own subtle way.

They brought Henry home in his carrier and as soon as they door opened, Benji was running at them unsteadily on his clumsy little legs, dressed only in his diaper, calling out, “Daddy! Daddy!”

Ian handed the carrier to Mickey and intercepted him before he could crash into their shins.

“Hey buddy!” he said in an excited way, but trying to keep his voice low. “Did you have a good time with Lysette?”

Their main babysitter was a sister of his favorite nurse at the hospital, and she’d graciously stayed overnight with him while they were tending to Svetlana, trying to be as hands on as possible in a birthing situation that didn’t have much at all to do with them. It was the strange thing about being two dads. Their whole process of entering parenthood together was very sanitized and secondhand.

“Yeah!” he shouted again.

“Remember what I told you about using a quiet voice?” he started talking softer and softer. “Remember what we said about the new baby? Your new baby brother?”

“Yeah,” he whispered back, big blue eyes zeroed in on Ian’s in rapt attention.

“You wanna meet him?”

“Yeah.”

Ian smiled wide, watching Mickey carry Henry to their bedroom. He glanced at Lysette.

“Don’t worry about me,” she said. “I’ll come by later to get my check and see the baby. Just call me when it’s a good time.”

“Thank you,” he replied gratefully, letting her out, then carrying Benji down the hallway.

Mickey had taken the baby out of his carrier and set him in the middle of the bed, where he was doing that weird jerking his head around gazing at nothing in particular thing that newborns did, his teensy hands grasping at the air. Ben gasped when he saw him.

“Baby,” he whispered, pointing his tiny finger at him.

Ian met Mickey’s eyes, finding the sweetest, biggest smile painting his face, and it legitimately made him a little weak in the knees. “Yeah, that’s the baby. He’s your brother.”

“Mine?” Benji asked, putting a hand on his chest.

“He’s all of ours, buddy,” answered Mickey. “He’s ours, just like you are.”

Benji started squirming in Ian’s arms to be let down, making little grunting noises.

“Hang on just a second,” he cautioned. “I’m gonna put you down on the bed with him, but you have to be very gentle. Remember how we talked about that? Gentle and nice.”

Ben nodded, and Ian set him down so he could crawl over to his new brother. Mickey sat on one edge of the bed, and Ian went to the other.

“Baby,” Benji said again, this time to Mickey.

Mickey laughed genuinely. “Yeah. He’s a baby. What do you think? You like him?”

“Yeah!”

He started petting Henry like a small animal, a fascinated look on his face that was ever so slightly skeptical, and Ian almost died from elation.


	5. The New Gallaghers

Henry Gallagher turned out to be more than a handful. His excessive energy had him constantly keyed up, and that was a perfect fire starter for Ben’s creative schemes for getting into things or _onto_ things. They both had a penchant for climbing up on everything like little monkeys. Everything Benji did was fucking hilarious to Henry, which meant the eldest was constantly showing off, and the youngest was the designated lackey.

Then something happened when Benji was 6 and Henry was 4. One day, they woke up, and Henry was more than just following Ben around taking cues on what to do next. He was actively engaged, and it was like they had seamlessly become a team. They were now bouncing ideas off of each other, and before Mickey knew it, they were unruly little shitheads.

The kids were aging his ass prematurely. He was only 39 years old, but he’d started graying years back, before Henry was even born. That shit had accelerated in the last couple years, though, and he was a genuine salt-and-pepper kinda dude now. Of course, Ian didn’t mind, because he’d always harbored that perverted thing for silver foxes. Mickey cared though. Ian’s stupid ass still looked the same as it had ten years ago. He could pass for 27, rather than 37 easy. And it wasn’t like Mickey took the brunt of their kid-related anxiety. Ian dealt with all of it right there with him. It just never manifested on him in physical ways, other than the occasional bags under the eyes. He didn’t even have a hint of crow’s feet, whereas those lines that always crinkled around Mickey’s eyes when he smiled were settling in deeper with each passing month. He supposed there was a roughness about himself that Ian could only ever match to a certain extent, and the evidence of that was just getting clearer now.

“We’re fuckin’ terrible with the discipline shit,” Mickey observed as he and Ian stood at the kitchen counter one afternoon, scarfing down yogurt and fruit, idly listening to the racket the boys were making in their room.

“We are not. _You_ are.”

“Fuck you, I ain’t takin’ all the blame.”

“That’s rich, coming from you. You’re way harder on Benji than you are on Henry.”

“I have to be harder on Ben, cuz you coddle his manipulative little ass all the time. It’s not Henry’s fault when they get into shit most of the time. We know who the mastermind is.”

A high pitched squeal rang out, followed by a loud dinosaur-type roar. Ian rolled his eyes. “You were just freaking out because Henry’s old enough and smart enough to be more active with Ben, but now he’s back to being the innocent bystander again?”

“More like a passive participator. I’m just sayin’. . . he learned everything from Benji’s conniving little ass. Yev sure didn’t corrupt him.”

“You have a gigantic blind spot when it comes to Henry. It’s really not fair to your other children, especially when you only punish Benji for shit that Henry does too.”

“Don’t act like I’m the only one who plays favorites. You’re basically obsessed with Benji, and he obviously loves you more, and don’t get me started on Yev.”

Ian sighed, scraping the plastic container for all remnants of yogurt. “Don’t start up about Yev and me again, Jesus.”

“Fine, let’s get back to the fuckin’ original point then. . .”

There was a crash. Both men held their breaths and looked at one another wide-eyed. A pair of mischievous giggles erupted, with no wails of despair mixed in. They exhaled in unison.

“Yeah, you’re right,” Ian conceded. “They’re gonna destroy this house and everyone inside of it if we don’t put our foot down.”

“Don’t look at me.”

“Svetlana can be scary as fuck. Maybe we can get her to put the fear into them?”

“Nah, we can’t do that to her. She’s cool enough about not bein’ a big part of their lives, we can’t put her on their bad side. We need your fuckin’ sister, probly.”

“Debs?”

“Fiona.”

Ian made a face. His relationship with Fiona had been strained for a long time now, mostly because of Mickey. She didn’t exactly approve of Ian abandoning his whole life in Chicago at her side for his no good fugitive ass. She’d started to come around more since the kids were born, though, probably just resigned to the fact that too much time had gone by without Mickey getting busted, and there Ian was, still standing by his side. She couldn’t really hold out hope anymore that something would end up coming between them. Plus, Fiona was a sucker for babies. She’d decided never to have her own, but she was super into everybody else’s. In a weird way, Fiona was a sort of grandmother to the boys. She was definitely more than an aunt. She’d have to duke it out with Mandy if they ever ended up together at a family function again.

“I don’t think we should count on Fiona taking any precious time off to come out here and do us a favor.”

“You two gotta bury the hatchet sometime, man. She’ll do it for the kids. And you can stop bein’ a pussy and just tell her how you feel about all her judgmental bullshit. It’ll make you feel better, and hopefully she’ll help us get a grip on these terrors you’ve created.”

“Oh, I’ve created them all by myself now? Funny how that works.”

Another crash boomed from the other room, followed by thrilled screams of delight.

“Goddammit!” Ian practically yelled in Mickey’s face where he stood nonchalantly finishing an apple, while Ian clomped away in righteous indignation. “Boys!” Mickey heard him belt. “Get down from there! Don’t jump!” Mickey snickered. “What did I tell you about knocking things off of high shelves? I don’t care if you think it’s funny, someone’s gonna get hurt.” He could just make out Henry’s titter of uncaring laughter. “Did you hear me, Henry? Something is gonna end up falling right on top of your head, and it’s gonna be blood and tears.”

“Christ,” Mickey muttered to himself, throwing the remnants of the apple into the sink, thinking he should probably intervene and take it down a notch.

Ian had his hands on his hips, which almost made Mickey laugh, and both boys were staring up at his towering form wide-eyed, but not very chagrined. It was pathetic.

“Benji, what have you and your brother been playin’ in here?” asked Mickey.

“We were just playin’ _Jurassic World_. We do it all the time,” shrugged Ben, but he started fidgeting, twisting around from side-to-side.

“What’s with throwin’ all the books and blocks off the shelves, huh? I know Dad’s told you not to do that more than once. It’s dangerous. Remember the time you bonked Henry on the head and he had that big welt?” Benji nodded. “Remember how bad you felt that he got hurt?” Benji nodded again. “Then stop climbin’ up there and pushin’ things off, okay?”

“Okay, Dad.”

“Henry,” he said, trying to regain the boy’s wandering attention.

“Uh huh?”

“You can play dinosaurs with Benji, but you can’t let him push shit off the shelves like that.” He could feel Ian giving him a look, but he met his eye anyway, relenting. “And don’t you do it either. You don’t wanna get hurt again, right?”

“No.”

Mickey hated it when he turned those big green eyes up at him. He was a total little hellion, but he looked like an innocent little angel. It was probably his stupid, curly, bright auburn hair. Ian was so traumatized by childhood taunts that he wanted to keep the kid’s hair cut short before anyone could even think to insult him about it, but Mickey wouldn’t allow it. Henry looked so ridiculous that it just made him even more adorable. He knew how to work his magic too. He was practically batting his eyelashes at Mickey to get out of a longer stern talking to. If he smiled, it would seal the deal. He had Ian’s big mouth too, and on his small-ass head, it had its own special goofy appeal. It was pretty much irresistible.

Unless you were Ian.

“Don’t smile at your dad and expect to get out of cleaning up this mess. It’s time for a snack, but you have to straighten up first.” Ian didn’t even have to speak to Mickey on his way out the door, he just glared at him in a way that delegated supervising the clean-up efforts, which left him watching two small people stomping around in fake anger, huffing and grunting, and trying to get away with tossing things around instead of placing them in an orderly way.

Mickey snapped his fingers a lot, chastising them for their crappy attitudes, eventually growing bored enough to step in and help them get all the books up on their shelves. Once everything was off of the floor, they trudged into the living room, babbling about some cartoon that Ian just happened to have ready to play as soon as they walked in. Their afternoon snacks and juice boxes were waiting for them on their trays on the floor in front of the TV.

He shot a knowing look over at Ian, arching an eyebrow with a toothy smile.

“Hey, boys,” Ian said, still looking right at Mickey, but in a meaningful way. “Daddy and I need to fix something in the bedroom. It won’t take long. Stay here and eat, and watch this episode. Don’t do anything else. Don’t go play in your bedroom, just stay here.”

Mickey tamped down on his laughter at the mere suggestion, but turned on his heel without a word, heading for the master bedroom. “Um, which thing are we fixing, exactly?” he asked lowly.

Trying to set up ways to sneak off for quickies was pretty common practice at this point. It was generally about 50/50 odds on whether or not they’d actually be able to get to the finish line before being interrupted. They tried to put as many locked doors between them and the terrible two as possible, after finding out that one was not enough, on more than one occasion. They weren’t exactly sure who had taught Ben to pick the simple indoor house locks, but they were fairly certain it hadn’t been Yev. Mickey was convinced it was most likely one of the Gallaghers when they were visiting over Christmas break the last time. Liam seemed the most likely candidate, age-wise. Probably told the kids it would be a hoot to unlock the doors on the whole family whenever given the opportunity. Now the problem was that two doors was the maximum amount of doors they could hide behind, so instead of getting directly walked in on now, they’d get a kind of warning interruption without the total embarrassment of being caught in a sexual position by their kids.

“The thing in the closet,” replied Ian, closing the bedroom door and twisting the flimsy lock. The only other option was the bathroom, and it wasn’t exactly spick and span at the moment.

“I always find this ironic, no matter how many times it happens,” quipped Mickey as he entered their walk-in, and turned around to face ‘fuck mode’ Ian.

“No time for jokes, Mick,” he said eagerly, pushing him backward until he hit the mirrored back wall of the closet space.

He watched him turn back to shut the door and lock that second barrier down, as the pitch black engulfed them.

“Lights on or off?” asked Ian, still near the door.

They had the floor-length mirror after all, and it was sometimes fun to fuck in front of it, but there was no time for that sorta thing right now.

“Off.” He undid his own pants, and brought them down to his thighs along with his boxer briefs, turning around to hold himself against the wall.

Ian stumbled over, reaching up for the little box of supplies they kept stashed in the back corner for these interludes. He grabbed Mickey’s waist, then kneaded his bare ass cheek, chuckling against his neck as he kissed it.

“You know, these times like this. . . stolen moments with all our clothes still on, bangin’ when we shouldn’t be. . . usually in a standing position. . . reminds me of the old days. Remember? When we first started up?”

A legitimate shiver ran down Mickey’s spine at Ian’s words, rasped against his neck like that, while long fingers were already busy prepping him, before he even had time to think.

Did Mickey Milkovich remember when he’d first started sneaking around the old neighborhood hooking up with Ian Gallagher? Yeah, it’d been over 20 years, but he was deadly certain that was some shit not even Alzheimers could take away from him in his eventual old age. Those were the kind of memories that were indelible.

Ian’s probing digits rubbed up against Mickey’s prostate, and he hummed happily. “Remember it goin’ down a lot faster and rougher than it is right now, Firecrotch.”

Ian’s mouth found his sloppily in the dark as he fucked him faster with his fingers, pulling back to answer, “I like to take better care of you now, old man. What can I say?”

“Look, we gotta be done within the next 5 to 7 minutes, tops, or else you know what’s gonna happen. Get the fuck on me.”

Ian laughed and kissed him again. “Alright, bossy.”

Mickey barely had time to react to Ian’s dick brushing against him before it was pushing inside. He felt one strong arm wrap around his chest, and another underneath his right knee, gripping the inside of his thigh so that Ian could hike his leg up just so. He didn’t wait to start like he usually would if Mickey weren’t being so demanding. He started pounding him good and deep right from the get-go, and even though it was way more practiced and precise, it did indeed remind him of the old days now that Ian had mentioned it. Their grubby little fuckface kids were forcing them to relive the harried, fast-fleeting satisfaction of their youthful sex lives.

“Oh yeah, fuck. Right there.” Mickey was a-okay with this juvenile reenactment if it meant busting a goddamn nut with his husband finally. The last time they’d snuck in some sex time a few days prior, Ian had gotten blown to full release, but Henry had decided to start banging on the door, wailing loudly about something Benji did to him, right before Mickey was on the verge of coming down Ian’s willing throat. It had thrown him off completely, and his erection flagged, as if the timbre of his son’s voice had chased his jizz back in the other direction. He’d pushed Ian off him and deferred fulfillment.

He _needed_ this orgasm.

Ian moved his arm from around his torso, and grabbed onto his other ass cheek, squeezing, then spreading him wider, pumping into him faster and harder. “Mmm, never get tired of this ass,” he said breathily into Mickey’s ear, moaning softly.

“Oh shit,” gasped Mickey, neck slick with sweat around his collar, Ian’s hot breath adding to the heat. “Touch me,” he managed to add in a sort of whine he wasn’t proud of. He was fighting to keep himself upright against the wall at the best angle, so he couldn’t reach for his dick himself. Just a little bit more and he’d be there. God, Ian hadn’t given it to him this good in a while.

Ian took Mickey’s cock in his big hand, still holding his other leg in place all the while. He jerked it a few times, and Mickey couldn’t hold in his groans of pleasure. He was almost there.

And, of course, that’s when the knocking started. Luckily, it was still on the outer bedroom door.

Ian’s hips paused for half a second, before Mickey whisper-shouted, “You stop now and I’ll fuckin’ chop your balls off and throw ‘em in the river. I’m about to come. Keep fuckin’ goin’!”

Ian didn’t hesitate to pick it up again right where he left off, even through the muffled, echoing chants of, “ _Dad! Daaaaad! Daaaaaaaaddyyyy!”_ that started up. He tuned it all out. Ian kept pegging just the right spot, hand flying over Mickey’s hard length.

“Come on, Mick. Come on my dick.”

And just like that, he did. He stuffed his knuckles into his mouth to stifle the sound, shooting all over the mirror in front of him as Ian dropped his leg and bent him lower, hand tight on the back of his neck, fucking him through his waves of ecstasy. Ian grunted incoherently, and Mickey clenched himself around his girth, milking it. He felt the warmth of Ian’s jizz filling him up, and it made him hot all over again. He not-so-secretly liked the way it felt sliding out of him, and the way it got his thighs wet. It was dirty in exactly the right way. But there was no time to enjoy such kinks just then.

Ian pulled out swiftly, and spun Mickey around for a deep, passionate kiss, just as the little banging fists started up on the other side of the closet door. Door one had been breached, to absolutely no one’s surprise.

Ian huffed a laugh, pecked him one more time, and shoved him lightly. “Stay here. I’ll distract ‘em with something so you can get cleaned up.” He heard the rustling and zip of Ian re-dressing, and squinted at the sudden flash of bright light as Ian cracked the door open to slyly slip out without giving Mickey’s current state away.

“Didn’t we tell you to watch the whole episode before you left the couch? What happened?” he heard Ian ask.

“Where’s Daddy?” countered Henry.

“He fixed a pipe and got dirty, so he has to take a shower. He’ll be out soon. Let’s go.”

“ _That’s_ not the bathroom,” Benji observed in a smart-aleck tone.

Mickey sniggered to himself as he flicked on the light so he could disrobe and wipe down the mirror.

  


* * *

  


Their family members liked to remark on how much Benji and Henry were just like Mickey and Ian when they were kids. They couldn’t get it through their thick skulls that the younger pair were way worse, because they weren’t around enough to really get a proper idea of their true natures. The boys hid it all behind their cute chubby cheeks and big bright eyes, and they said unintentionally hysterical things all the time. Add to that a penchant for showing off in front of guests with random improvised performances like mini court jesters, and their antics appeared to be mainly of the adorable variety. Ian tried to insist they were capable of the hellfire that he described, only to be accused of being dramatic.

Fiona liked to downplay most things related to Ian, unless the subject was Mickey. Ian’s loyalty to him superseding everything else in the end had never really made sense to her, particularly since she was one of the things he’d had to leave behind in order to pursue the happiness he’d kept denying himself. Ian understood why she saw it the way she did at first, but after trying to explain himself to her more than once, and her still thinking his decisions were somehow unsound, he’d gotten pissed that she wouldn’t soften towards Mickey again, like she had for a time years ago, when Ian had his first big depressive phase and had to be committed. It was like all traces of that fondness had been obliterated, never to return again.

She didn’t like that their lives were founded on a bed of lies and that it was putting them at constant risk, no matter how much it felt like they’d gotten away with everything and shed the more upsetting aspects of the past.

Mickey was probably right. He should confront Fiona in a fully honest and forthright way about it and get her to ease some of the tension that had built up between them since he was young. And if she could be even a modicum of help with their nightmarish brood, then it would be more than worth it.

Henry was crying in a very practiced hammy way as Mickey argued loudly with Benji in the living room, so Ian took that as his cue to step outside and call his sister.

He pulled up the contact, pressed ‘send’ and walked over to where the grown-ups had an out-of-reach loose brick hiding a carton of American Spirits and a lighter. Neither of them smoked much anymore, though it seemed to be picking up in habit slightly as of late, so they kept a stash they could hit up to escape the chaos inside their home as needed. They kept a back-up carton in the back of the freezer, and a different stash spot for the weed altogether. Somewhere more secure.

He took out a cigarette and lit it, relishing the first hit after another stressful day.

“ _Ian?_ ”

“Fi!” he said, exhaling the smoke audibly. He couldn’t help feeling a little excited in her distant presence.

“ _Good to hear your voice, jerkface_ ,” she answered.

“What happened to sweetface?”

She scoffed. “ _Stopped bein’ so sweet a while ago, I’m sorry to say_.”

“Ouch. Well, that’s the least of my worries at the moment.” He took another deep drag.

“ _Everything okay?_ ”

“Not really. I mean, no one’s in like mortal peril, and it’s not about any _legal_ issues. It’s this fucking tag team of terror we have running rampant in this house. Turns out, Mickey and I suck at this whole parenting young children thing.”

“ _Come on, Ian, that’s not true. I’ve seen you with all the little ones since you were 5 years old, and you’ve never fucked up. There’s no way you could suck._ ”

“Well, I’m fucking telling you that those little shits walk all over us and they don’t obey at all. And fucking Mickey is all soft on Henry, and too hard on Benji, and it’s giving them both complexes that I don’t approve of. And I’m worried that I don’t like Henry enough.”

Fiona cackled in his ear so loudly that he had to move the phone a way. It made him laugh too, and he took another pull off the smoke and sat down in the grass, cradling the phone with his shoulder, while leaning back on one hand. “ _You love Henry. He’s practically_ you _reincarnated, except you never died, so it’s fuckin’ creepy and weird._ ”

“Trust me, I was never this rambunctious. I’m pretty sure he’s got ADD. He’s totally nuts and his internal battery is endless. I can barely get him to nap. He’s just like… _always_ there.”

“ _What about Ben?_ ”

“Yeah, he’s a pain in the ass too, but at least he has an off switch, and he goes back to school in September.”

They snickered.

“ _So you’re callin’ to ask for advice?_ ”

“I’m callin’ to ask for an intervention. I need your motherly touch right now. _We_ need you.”

Ian really hadn’t been expecting to hear his eldest sister choke up over the proposition. He was really more prepared to be turned down with the usual pat, polite excuses.

“ _What the hell, it’s summer. I can take a vacation if I want, right?_ ”

“I’ll fly you out on our dime, okay? You’d be doing us a huge favor.”

“ _Slow your roll. Let’s not count the eggs before they hatch. I can’t work miracles, and you can’t assume that some aunt they see once a year is gonna be able to get through to ‘em._ ”

“Whatever, you’ll get through to _us_. This shit is harder than I expected. And, yes, I realize what a dumb thing that is to say this far into the game.”

“ _You’re being too hard on yourself, as usual. I don’t even hear any racket in the background. I’m sure it’s not as bad as you think._ ”

Ian laughed sardonically and hoisted himself up, jogging over to the back door, and wrenching it open. Almost the exact same cacophony he’d departed on greeted his ears again: Henry wailing loudly, except in a super-fake sort of droning monotone, Mickey chastising in a booming voice, and now Benji shrieking back at him in his bratty, tiny, angry register. He stuck the phone inside for 20 seconds, then pulled it back outside with him and closed the door again.

“That’s what it sounds like inside my house right now. Which is why I’m outside smoking and complaining to you about what a mess we’ve made.”

“ _Jesus, it does sound like you have your hands full. But, if my inexperienced teenaged ass could raise five children with fuck all help from anyone, I’m pretty sure you and Mickey can do it together while pushing 40._ ”

“Hey now, you better watch it with that. I still have three years to go, and you’re already beyond, so can it. Mickey is freaking out about it enough for the both of us.”

“ _Okay, okay, I don’t need you to add more drama to this picture you’ve been paintin’ me. I’ll come out and see what I can do._ ”

Ian almost wept with relief. “Thank you, Fi.”

The Saturday morning of Fiona’s imminent arrival started with Ian coming to, bouncing around obnoxiously as small feet jumped around his and Mickey’s legs, which were tangled up in the sheets. He pried his eyes open and watched his sons giggle and loll their heads around, heedless of the early morning hour.

“Hey, you two,” he said horsely, “what did I say about doing that while we’re sleeping?”

Henry accidentally kicked him in the shin and he winced. Benji ignored his question and launched himself forward onto Ian’s chest instead.

“Daddy, you awake?” he asked, patting him on the cheek.

Ian snickered. “I’m looking at you and talking to you, aren’t I?”

“Dad’s still sleepin’,” said Ben, pointing an emphatic finger at Mickey who still hadn’t moved an inch, laid out on his stomach, head facing away from them and pressed hard into the pillow.

“You think?” he asked, looking back at his son with a put upon expression of interest, and Ben nodded. “Cuz I think he may be foolin’ us.”

“Really? You think he’s foolin’?” The boy scrunched up his nose, and his eyebrows twitched in a way that was unmistakably Mickey.

Henry finally stopped hopping around, and flung himself harshly onto Ian’s shins, sending another sharp twinge of pain shooting up one leg. He grimaced, but refrained from telling the kid off. He looked him in the eye, and Henry smiled like he knew what he’d just done, and that he didn’t care.

Ian turned back to Benji. “Yeah, I do. Why don’t you go see if his eyes are open?”

Ben crawled off of Ian, and up onto Mickey’s back, leaning his head around and breathing right into his dad’s face. Henry took that as his cue to hurl himself off of Ian and onto Mickey’s legs, with a little sing-song of, “Daddy! Wake up! Daddy!”

“You awake, Dad?” he heard Benji ask.

“No,” Mickey grumbled.

“Yes you are!” exclaimed Benji. “Daddy was right! You’re tryin’ to fool us.”

“That’s a lie,” said Mickey.

“You’re talkin’ right now, so it’s true,” reasoned Ben.

“Nuh-uh,” retorted Mickey, and Ian chuckled, snuggling back down into the warmth of his pillow.

“Uggghhhhh,” huffed Henry loudly and dramatically, pulling himself up Mickey’s body so he could push Ben out of the way and take his place. “Daddy! I’m hungry.”

“Why didn’t you tell Dad?” he asked.

Henry shot Ian an incredulous look. “I want french fry toast!” he belted like an accusation.

Ian sighed and held his tongue. Henry never protested over Ian’s pancakes, but he wouldn’t eat french toast cooked by anyone other than Mickey. Ian had made some a few months back, and Henry had taken one bite of it, spit it out, looked him right in the face and thrown it against the wall. Ian had been furious, but Mickey had quickly intervened.

Benji cackled, correcting his brother, “It’s french toast, dummy, not french fry toast.”

“It’s french _fry_ toast, dummy!” Henry volleyed back.

“Ben, don’t call your brother dumb,” droned Mickey, still not up or facing any of them. Not that Ian really felt like moving yet either, but someone was going to have to be unselfish and placate the kids soon.

“But he’s _wrong_!” cried Benji indignantly. “Daddy, tell him Henry’s wrong.”

Jesus, since when were they pitting him and Mickey against each other like this? “Ben, he’s only 4, give him a break,” said Ian, trying for diplomacy.

“4 and a _half_!” Henry amended.

“But–” started Ben.

“Just drop it!” said Ian. “Mick, you makin’ him his damn french fry toast, or what?”

“Ha!” Henry hollered in Ben’s face triumphantly. Ben shoved him away and stuck his tongue out.

Mickey let out a long, guttural groan and shimmied out from underneath the kids and the blankets, standing unsteadily and stretching his whole body upward with a yawn. Ian watched the way his back muscles moved with him, and the way his ass still looked pert inside his boxers. Mickey glanced back, noticing the look on his face, and rolling his eyes, then wiping the sleep out.

“I ain’t about to go cook for our children while you crank one out, so don’t even think about it.”

Ian grinned.

“What’s ‘crank one out’ mean?” asked Benji.

Ian arched his eyebrow at Mickey pointedly, imploring him to answer.

“Uhhhhh, it just means that he’s not allowed to have fun without me.”

“Never?” said Henry. “That’s silly.”

Ian eyed the place on Mickey’s chest where his name was engraved. It had been weird seeing it there at first, but now Ian couldn’t picture him without it. He’d added all the boy’s names to his left bicep a couple years back.

“What can I say, I’m a silly guy,” shrugged Mickey, winking at their youngest and pulling a wonky face as he pulled on a clean tee shirt.

He did soft shit like that all the time now. . . cute shit. He was a cute dad. Ian knew he would be, but it still kind of stunned him sometimes.

Ian decided to take Benji with him to pick up Fiona from the airport, because he was the one most likely to obey Ian when they were alone together. They’d figured that separating the boys for a while would help contain some of their energy once their aunt had arrived, so Mickey stayed behind with Henry.

To his relief, Ben did behave himself, and didn’t even give him a hard time about holding his hand. He clung to Ian’s side as he greeted Fiona with a long hug, and acted shy for about thirty seconds before hugging Fiona himself.

“So,” said Ian as they settled into the drive to the house, “is it weird being here without any of our other siblings as a buffer?”

Fiona scoffed. “Buffer? Since when do we need a buffer?”

“You know what I mean. . . We haven’t spent time together without Liam, or Debs, or Lip, or Carl, or any of their kids and significant others in like. . . _ever_?”

“Well, isn’t your family gonna be around? They don’t count?”

“They do count, which is kinda why I brought it up. You gonna be nice to Mickey?” he asked point blank.

“Why wouldn’t I be nice to Mickey? I’m always polite.”

“Mmhmm. . . _polite_. . . stiffly, strangely polite. It’s uncomfortable.”

“He said I make him uncomfortable?”

“Course not, I noticed all on my own that you make the whole vibe weird, and it’s better to just acknowledge that now, and get it out of the way. I don’t want you and Mickey circling around each other all fucking tentatively the whole week.”

“Got it,” agreed Fiona, holding her hands up in surrender. “I’m not here to make it weird.”

“Thank you. The boys are still sharing a bedroom, so you’ll have Yev’s old room completely to yourself for once. Use it as an escape hatch if you need to.”

“Sounds good. Can’t wait to see Henry!” she smiled widely, and twisted her neck to look at her nephew in the back seat, reaching back to ruffle his floppy dark hair.

The afternoon and evening passed by pretty pedestrianly as Fiona got settled into their home. Henry practically climbed her like a tree as soon as she set foot in the house, much to his aunt’s delight. His energy was big, but infectious. She exchanged a slightly stiff hug with Mickey once her nephew allowed her to put him down, but Ian thought her smile seemed genuine. They made small talk about the Gallaghers back home for a while, the kids sometimes interrupting to show off their favorite toys and get their guest’s approval. Once Ian felt comfortable about the vibe in the room, he retreated to the kitchen to cook a giant pan of lasagna in honor of Fiona’s first night in town.

They spent Sunday hanging out in the backyard. The kids ran around with water guns, splashing about in their inflatable pool, and playing on their _Slip N’ Slide,_ while the adults drank beer and soaked their feet from their vinyl lawn chair perches, occasionally intervening to interrupt minor scuffles and avoid injuries when the horseplay got too rough. Mickey grilled hot dogs for them, and the kids thankfully passed out early from their heat exhaustion after so many hours in the sun.

Free from the burden of constant vigilance, Ian steered his sister and husband back outside as it grew later, lighting candles, turning on low background music, and passing their stash to Mickey to roll up a fat joint.

Fiona laughed. “I don’t think I’ve smoked weed since the last time I was here with Carl.”

“Colorado, man. Practically a requirement to get high on the weekends,” replied Mickey, as he broke up a couple of nuggets.

“Seriously,” agreed Ian. “Even the people you’d least expect are total potheads. Sweet little old ladies and all.”

“You smoke with Yev?” she asked.

“Yeah, but not ’til he was 18,” said Ian.

“Made him keep that shit to his self before then,” added Mickey. “Sneakin’ off with his friends like normal kids have to. Svetlana woulda’ had our balls otherwise.”

“And you wait ’til Henry and Benji are in bed and everything,” said Fiona. “I’m impressed.”

“Yeah, well, pushin’ 40 now,” answered Mickey. “Ain’t like we can just do whatever the fuck we want anymore.”

“It’s legal here, but we don’t want the boys getting any ideas,” Ian amended. “Don’t want ‘em getting into that shit in middle school like we all did.”

Mickey chuckled, licking at the papers as he finished rolling.

“You know, they’re definitely your fuckin’ children and all, spittin’ images and whatnot, but I still maintain they’re not as difficult as you think,” Fiona stated, accepting the joint and lighter to get it going.

Ian snorted in derision. “Yeah, sure. Let’s hear what you have to say at the end of the week, Aunt Fi.”

The kids no longer stayed at daycare unless something unexpected or pressing came up. Mickey had been promoted to manager at work, but the only position open was working nights. It was too much of a salary increase to pass up, so for nearly a year now, they’d developed a routine that allowed them to cover childcare themselves. This left them with little overlap in their schedules, however, and unless it was a weekend, it left them alone with the boys during the work week. Ian worked from 6 AM to 2 PM, and Mickey worked from 3 PM to 11 PM, making Mickey the morning parent and Ian the evening one. Ben would be returning to elementary school for first grade in the fall, but Henry still had another year before Kindergarten. Fiona would get a full dose of their daily lives while she was in town, seeing firsthand what kind of dads Ian and Mickey were and their own ways of wrangling their wild young sons.

“Look,” she said, puffing on the spliff, “I know it’s not easy havin’ more than one little kid to look after. . . I know that better than anyone, but they seem to be in pretty good condition to me.” She exhaled and took one more toke before passing it to Ian. “Just put it in perspective, guys. Think about how both of you grew up. You just told me a couple small ways that you make it different for them. _Better_ for them. And I can see it myself. They’re happy and healthy. They live in a nice house. They’re good. You’re doin’ good.”

Ian sighed. “It’s not that simple.” He took another hit, and passed it Mickey.

“I’m sure it’s not,” she conceded, “but you’re doin’ it anyway. They’ve got a stable two-parent household. We all know that’s a luxury.”

Mickey almost choked on the smoke he was inhaling, and he coughed a few times, looking at her in disbelief. “Did you just call me stable?”

Ian giggled, already feeling a bit stoned, eyes darting between the two of them as they stared at one another for a moment.

“Well. . . credit where credit is due. I figure you made it this far. I still worry about all the fugitive shit, of course, but you seem to have it under control.”

“Thanks, Fi,” said Ian warmly, watching as she took another drag.

Mickey was still looking a little dazed at the compliments he was receiving from his normally withholding sister-in-law. Ian felt relief sweep through him as it dawned on him that the killer telling-off-Fiona speech he’d been concocting in his head the last couple weeks would probably end up going to waste. Unless things shifted in the coming days, he probably wouldn’t need to have it out with her about Mickey after all. She seemed to be arriving at the conclusions he needed her to all on her own.

Ian took the joint from her and leaned back into his chair, letting himself admire the pleasantness of the evening and his sister’s attitude. He really did miss Fiona. Seeing her alone was kind of amazing, and he wished that he could see what she was like now, living for herself all the time, without the responsibility of her siblings weighing her down. Liam still lived with her, despite being in his mid-20s, but he came and went as he pleased. She was just doing whatever she could to keep him away from bad girls. Apparently, he was one of those sweet guys that couldn’t resist bossy bitches that rubbed Fiona the wrong way. She had him managing the laundromat she owned, but repeatedly failed at playing cupid by trying to set him up with any nice available girl that passed through the diner she also owned.

She herself was currently single, though she’d been with a dude named Brad for about eight years before things went south. It’d been her longest relationship by a landslide, and she’d kept the house they bought together in a decent part of town when they broke up. She wasn’t much changed in her appearance, even in her middle age. She still had flawless skin, thick curly hair, and the metabolism of a 20-year-old. Ian was confident she’d find the one eventually. He was just glad she didn’t feel the constant need to be in a relationship just for the sake of being in one, like she used to. . . like _he_ used to before he settled down with Mickey for the long haul.

“Yo, space cadet,” said Mickey, kicking at his chair. “Pass that shit.”

“Sorry,” Ian replied, handing over the rapidly dwindling jay, then turning his attention back to Fiona. “You really think we’re good parents?”

She met his eye confidently. “I do. Just the fact that you’re so worried about it speaks volumes. Think Frank would spend even half a second wonderin’ about how he was affecting his children or if he should change the way he does things? Or Terry, for that matter?”

Mickey grumbled under his breath, exhaling a big cloud of smoke. “Thank fuck those assholes are both in the ground now.”

“And missed by exactly none of their kids for good reason,” she replied. “See what I mean?”

Ian nodded, appreciating the foggy mellowness settling into him. He knew he and Mickey weren’t their shitbag fathers, but that didn’t mean they knew what they were doing either.

“Alright, Fiona’s gonna be here for a whole week, so why don’t we fuckin’ table the heavy discussion for another night, eh?” said Mickey, crossing his arms behind his head and leaning back. “We could probly get you laid while you’re here. Ian knows a lotta hot straight doctors at the hospital.” He waggled his eyebrows at her, and she busted up.

“I’ll get back to you on that one.”

The week went by with relatively few mishaps kid-wise, other than a scraped knee on the driveway, a hard bonk on the head with a plastic lightsaber, a stubbed toe on the dresser, and a couple of snot-nosed temper tantrums. Having Fiona there to help out was a huge relief, though, and her presence made things run just a little bit smoother. There was a calmness to her that Ian and Mickey just didn’t possess with the boys anymore, so she was able to gently coax them into obedience in a way that was kind of impressive.

“Wonder if it would be better for them to have a female influence around,” Ian mused as he sat outside drinking red wine with his sister on Friday night.

The kids were down for the count, and they were waiting for Mickey to come home, which wouldn’t be for another couple hours.

“Svetlana never comes over at all?” asked Fiona.

“She does sometimes, but it’s a bit weird. They’re both technically half hers, but she gave up all her rights, and she’s never complained or expressed she wanted things to be different, but I still feel like we can’t ask too much of her. She’s let us have a good relationship with Yev, and we let her have a good relationship with Ben and Henry, but it’s not the same. I think she needs to keep a certain amount of emotional distance.”

“Gotcha, so. . . who exactly is gonna provide the female influence then?”

“I don’t know, I just hope they’re not gonna end up resenting us cuz they don’t have a mom.”

“Well, you knew they weren’t gonna have a mom when you decided to have ‘em, didn’t you? Otherwise you would’ve asked for a different arrangement from Svetlana or done it some other way.”

“Yeah, in theory, it made sense. Gay people have kids all the time, and there are single parents, but I don’t know. . . seeing the way they are with you just got me thinking. Maybe it’ll fuck them up not having a mom. Maybe it fucked me up. And Mickey too.”

“You had moms, they were just bad at sticking around. All of our parents were selfish. Stop comparing yourselves to them. The kids only listen to me better, because I’m not the one here everyday telling them what to do and what not to do. They can’t really get in trouble with me. If I were living in this house with you, trust me, it’d be a whole ‘nother story.”

“Really?”

“Yes, really. They’ll be fine without a mom. Just keep caring, and keep paying attention. It’s gonna be okay.” She leaned back into her chair and took a sip of wine. “You still seein’ a shrink?”

“Not regularly, no. I’m still on meds and everything, but that just means keeping my clinician appointments every few months.”

“Maybe you should think about goin’ again. Might help you work out some of this anxiety about the boys. You could even take Mickey with you.”

Ian cringed. “Sounds suspiciously like you’re telling me I need couple’s counseling.”

“Maybe you do,” she shrugged, and he jerked his head up from his wine glass, so she hastily continued. “Not like because you two have shit between you, but like just the parental aspect. You’re working totally opposite schedules, so of course it’s gonna be hard to stay on the same page with the kids. They treat you both a bit differently, I’ve noticed.”

Ian rolled his eyes. “Yeah, I know. They’re easier on Mickey.”

Fiona chuckled. “I wouldn’t exactly say that, but it is pretty cute that you all kinda have your favorites.”

“Is that normal? I feel so guilty about it sometimes.”

“I mean, I guess so. Most people seem to have a favorite even if they lie and say they don’t. It’s pretty funny, though; Benji calls you ‘Daddy’ and Mickey ‘Dad,’ but Henry calls you ‘Dad’ and Mickey ‘Daddy.’ Says it all really. Cracks me the fuck up.”

“I thought having my own flesh and blood kid would be the best thing ever, but it’s like reminding me of myself has the opposite effect on me. I like the way Benji looks like Mickey and has his little attitude. I get to see a version of what Mick would be like if Terry hadn’t fucked him up when he was a kid.”

Fiona nods. “I get it, but you do need to find the joy in Henry being like you, Ian. It’s not a bad thing. He’s just a little kid now, and maybe he’s a little crazy, but he’ll settle down eventually. Don’t punish him for reminding you of things you don’t like about yourself.”

“I know. I love him, but he’s soooo into Mickey. Maybe it’s my fault that he prefers him.”

“See, these are things you need to talk about with someone who can help you work it out. I don’t have any answers for you. Do you and Mickey talk about this stuff at all?”

“Yeah, ‘course we do, but we don’t have any answers either. I kinda miss him, though. We’ve been together forever, but I haven’t seen this little of him in a long time. We barely even have sex anymore. There’s no time, or energy, and the kids are always right there.”

“That does suck. I think that’s pretty normal though.”

“You ever regret not having any kids of your own?”

She shook her head. “Nope. I made the right choice. Couldn’t go through it all again. You guys were enough for me, and I always kinda felt like Liam was totally mine and mine alone. Is that weird?”

“No. He _is_ yours. He turned out the most like you, I think.”

Fiona smiles widely, lighting up her whole face. “Thanks. I know I should probly make him get his own place, but I’m kinda terrified of livin’ alone. Never had to do that in all my life, and I’m a bit long in the tooth to start advertising for roommates.”

They kept talking, pausing briefly to open a second bottle of wine, and Ian felt like he hadn’t been so close to his sister in a really long time, maybe ever. Being one-on-one with her outside of her own space, without the rest of their family listening in and throwing in their two cents whenever they felt like it, it was just different. He decided he was going to make sure they made time to visit like this as regularly as possible going forward.

By the time Mickey arrived home, they’d gotten a little bit loud in their tipsiness.

“Where’s the party at?” he asked, coming through the back door, already changed into his lounging clothes.

“Heeeeyyyy!” they chorused as he closed the door.

“Shhhhhh,” he chastised. “Keep it down, you two. You wake up the boys now, we’ll be in a world of hurt tomorrow.”

“Sorry, Mick,” grinned Ian as Mickey leaned down for a quick kiss hello, before sitting down in the chair next to him, holding a loaded pipe.

“S’okay,” he answered, raising the pipe up to his mouth and taking a hit. “Weekend, man. I’m gonna sleep hard tonight.”

“Hey,” said Fiona, grabbing their attention, “I was thinkin’. . . since tomorrow’s my last day here and everything, I could take the kids to the zoo. Give you guys a day off to, uh. . . you know, do whatever you want.” She gave Ian a pointed look, then winked, which Mickey didn’t miss.

“Whatchoo been tellin’ her, man?” Mickey asked, elbowing him as he took another hit.

“What do you think?” Ian retorted, arching his eyebrow.

Mickey rolled his eyes. “Whatever,” he said, turning back to Fiona. “You sure you wanna take on those two by theirselves in a public place?”

Fiona waved her hand and made a face. “Oh please, I’ll be fine. You guys deserve a break. Just don’t spend it doin’ chores or anything lame like that. Have some fun.”

“Can’t argue with that,” said Ian.

The next morning, Ian got up to help Fiona get the boys ready for their big day out, letting Mickey sleep in, then returned to bed and immediately snuggled up to his back, falling asleep again. Around 10 AM, he awoke in practically the same position and started grinding up on his favorite ass until he was hard. They stayed in bed all day, watching TV and happily talking bullshit between rounds of sex; sometimes muting the sound and shushing each other so they could enjoy the silence. It was glorious. Aside from bathroom breaks and Ian heating up leftovers to bring back to eat in bed, they didn’t get up until Fiona called to say they were on their way back. That led to a handsy shared shower, and they had just enough time to change the sheets and straighten the bed back up before the kids came running through the door in super-charged excitement mode.

“It was awesome!” cried Benji, holding up some plastic animal figures he’d gotten, for Ian to inspect.

“Yeah, look, Dad!” exclaimed Henry, holding up some plush toys.

“Wow!” said Ian over-enthusiastically, bending down to tickle his tummy. Henry giggled. “What was your favorite?”

“Giraffes!” he said, holding said stuffed animal up above his head. “And elephants!” He did the same with the other.

“Cool, buddy! Go show ‘em to Daddy.”

Henry immediately took off running down the hallway to find Mickey, yelling, “Daddy! Daddy!” as he went.

“I liked all the monkeys,” said Benji more calmly. “They had all kinds. They even had a gorilla! It was so big. His face really looked like a person. And the hippopotamuses were cool too. One of ‘em had their mouth open in the water. It looked crazy!”

“Awesome! Did you say thanks to Aunt Fi?” he asked, looking to her to try and gauge how it really went.

“Thanks, Aunt Fi,” said Ben distractedly, as he took off down the hall to join Henry animatedly explaining the day to Mickey in the master bedroom.

“How was it? They behave okay?”

“For the most part,” replied Fiona. “Could use a beer or somethin’, though.” She sat down heavily on the sofa, tossing her purse off to the side. “Henry kinda needs one of those human kid leashes. Kept squirmin’ outta my grip and runnin’ off, but he never got lost or anything. Got some pretty good pictures, though. I’ll send ‘em to you in a minute.”

“Thanks for doing that for us. It was really fucking amazing to have a day of peace.”

“Peace?” she asked incredulously, arching an eyebrow.

“Peace and sex,” smiled Ian.

Fiona smiled back. “Good.”

For her last night in town, Ian had bought nice steaks, asparagus, and potatoes to fix, and once the kids were asleep, they had one last adult powwow.

“Fiona thinks we should see a counselor,” Ian said to Mickey, and the latter almost choked on the cigarette smoke he was indulging in with his beer.

“The fuck?” he asked, turning to fix her with the screwed-up eyebrows and gaping mouth expression that Ian had always loved.

“For the kids,” she clarified. “I think maybe if you guys talk it out with a professional, they’ll help you figure out how to get over this hurdle.”

Mickey turned his high eyebrows on Ian, silently requesting his opinion on the matter.

Ian shrugged. “Might not be a bad idea. Unless we wanna hire one of those British nannies that’ll come in and tell us everything we’re doing wrong and whip the kids into shape. Might be kinda costly.”

“You think we’re fuckin’ up that bad?” he asked.

“No,” said Ian, reaching out to squeeze his shoulder, “but I think we need to do something before we get the chance to let it get too bad.”

“You guys are doin’ good. I already told you that. But you can’t just do nothing about your fears and hardships. Maybe an outside point of view will help. Counseling helped you with your shit, right?” she asked Ian.

He nodded.

“So. . . maybe give it a shot again, yeah?” she pressed.

“Yeah, maybe,” he answered, turning to his husband once more.

Mickey snorted and took a deep drag, tilting his head up on the exhale, and bouncing on the balls of his feet, shrugging. “Yeah, alright.”

Fiona stepped forward and took Ian’s lopsided chin in her hand. “I’m proud of you,” she said firmly. “Really. Despite everything, you’ve done really well for yourself. You accomplished a lot. The kids are great, and they’re gonna grow up good. Hell, you even married your high school sweetheart,” she teased, glancing at Mickey, who got an uncharacteristically bashful look on his face. “And you,” she stepped over to him. “Thank you for bein’ so good to him, and to my nephews. I know I gave you a lot of shit, and I still think it was mostly warranted, but you and Ian have been together forever now, and I get it.” She put her arms around him in a firm hug, and Ian watched in wonder as the rigidity left Mickey’s body, and he caved, melting into it and putting his arms around her as well. “You better keep ‘em safe. If you don’t, I’ll still kill you with my bare hands.”

Mickey laughed genuinely over her shoulder. “Don’t worry, I wouldn’t put up a fight.”

  


* * *

  


“Why don’t you start by telling me why you’re here.”

Mickey felt the nervousness rolling off of himself in waves. His leg wouldn’t stop shaking anxiously, and he was chewing on the nail of his right thumb. It’d probably be bitten down to a painful degree by the time he got out of this lady’s office.

Her name was Sharon, a soft-spoken black woman with a kind face, roughly ten or fifteen years older than him, with that same annoyingly calm, cool, and collected vibe that all therapist types seemed to have. If those characteristics were supposed to be transferred to the clients sitting in front of them, then he still didn’t understand how that worked, because if anything they just agitated him even more.

Ian reached over and grasped his knee to settle his restless motion, before taking it upon himself to supply the answer to her posed question, that had been stated to sound more like a subtle direction.

“I guess we kind of need some guidance on how to handle our kids. They’re a bit on the unruly side, and it can get overwhelming sometimes.”

“I see,” she said with a mild smile. “How old are they?”

“Four and six,” said Ian.

“Girls? Boys? Boy and girl?”

“Two boys,” replied Ian. “That’s part of the problem, I think.”

“How so?”

“I don’t know, I guess their combined energy as brothers close in age is a lot to deal with at times. It seemed easier when they were younger, but now that Henry’s more of his own person, it seems more. . . chaotic.”

“And what happens when things get chaotic?”

The conversation continued as if Mickey wasn’t even there, but Ian kept glancing over at him expectantly, even as he went on talking.

“Nothing really happens, it just feels like. . . too much.”

“Do you ever react in anger?”

“Well, yes. Of course. Sometimes we have to, but not like in a violent way if that’s what you’re asking. We would never hit them.”

“Do you yell?”

“Sometimes.”

“And you?” she asked, pointedly looking at Mickey. “You’re pretty quiet over there.”

Mickey wiggled about uncomfortably on the small couch under her scrutiny. Ian was still touching his knee, but there was space between them on the seat. He forced himself to meet her eye.

“Sometimes,” he echoed Ian’s response.

“Anything else you have trouble with regarding the children?”

He shifted on the cushion again. “I don’t know. I just do what I gotta do. Ian’s the one that overthinks things.”

“I don’t overthink,” Ian said to him, then looked back at Sharon. “I’m bipolar. I’m on meds and I’ve been stable for a long time. No setbacks to really speak of recently, but maybe I worry about something happening that’ll trigger me.”

She started jotting down notes at that point, and Mickey started bouncing his leg again, until Ian gave him another squeeze.

“Do you go to talk therapy on your own?”

“Not anymore, no. I think that’s why I thought this might be a good idea when my sister suggested it.”

“You have a support network here in Denver? Other family?”

Ian shook his head. “Not really. Most of my family is back in Chicago, and we have some siblings in other cities, but here, it’s just us. And Mickey’s older son, Yev, and his mom.”

“And they’re a part of your lives?” She was looking at Mickey again.

He cleared his throat. “Yeah. Well, Yev still has his room at our place, but he’s 20 now. He’s goin’ to college and he lives in a dorm. Comes back one weekend a month if we’re lucky. Stays a week here and there over the summer.”

“You seem young to have a 20-year-old,” she observed.

Mickey cast a worried glance at Ian, who nodded in reassurance.

“Yeah, well, uh. . . wasn’t exactly a planned thing. It was more of an accident with pretty unpleasant extenuating circumstances.”

“But you get along with your. . . ex?”

Mickey nodded, unsure of how exactly to explain without really explaining. He never really talked about that whole day that everything happened. It felt like so long ago that it didn’t even matter anymore. Terry was dead and gone, and they were all alive and happy. They’d moved on from it.

“She wasn’t really my ex. I mean, technically, we were married, but it wasn’t my choice. I was already with Ian at the time, for a couple years before that all happened, but nobody knew about us. Our whole relationship was a secret. My dad. . . wasn’t the kinda guy who thought well of gay people.”

Ian snorted in disgust. “To put it fucking mildly.”

The note scribbling was going a mile a minute now. “So he. . . discovered your relationship?”

Mickey nodded again, before speaking hoarsely, “Yeah. Yeah, he caught us, and uh, almost killed us both. Made me marry Svet, and uh, I felt like I had to sleep with her.” He couldn’t bring himself to do more than fib his way out of that one. “She got pregnant. It wasn’t what I wanted.”

“He was abusive while you were growing up?” She said it so matter-of-fact it was almost jarring.

“You could say that.”

Ian was stroking at the inside of his thigh now, and Mickey closed his eyes, feeling a little oversensitive. This was why he hated going to shrinks. He didn’t want this floodgate of emotion overtaking him for no good reason. The past was in the past, and he was more than happy to let is stay buried there.

Sharon must have noticed he needed a reprieve, because she directed her next question at Ian. “And you? How was your home life growing up?”

Ian laughed in that dismissive way of his. “Not so great. I mean. . . better than Mick’s, but bad in different ways. Not so bad in other ways. My parents weren’t really in the picture much. Especially after I was about. . . I don’t know. . . 7 or 8? Mom was bipolar too, but never stayed on meds, and kept running off all the time. Eventually she stayed gone almost for good. Popped back up randomly to disrupt everything, then disappeared again on a whim. Dad was one of those life-long drunks that lost his mind and became a bigger piece of shit every year he was alive. Made us take care of him, rather than the other way around.”

“So who _did_ take care of you?”

“Fiona. My sister. She was barely old enough to. . . do anything really, but she basically became our sole guardian when she was all of like 12 or 13. I have four other siblings. Out of all of us, she got the rawest deal. Gave up a lot to be there for us. But we all pitched in. Basically just raised ourselves, I guess.”

“Wow. That’s a lot. So you both come from very unconventional backgrounds. Seems like you lack the life experience to guide you in your own parenting, perhaps?”

“Definitely. That’s why I feel like we need help. I don’t want. . .” Ian paused, gesturing to Mickey and meeting his eye, “ _we_ don’t want to be like our terrible parents. We want Benji and Henry to have everything we never had.”

“Well, I know we’ve only just met, but I think that just the simple act of coming here of your own volition, and asking for help proves that you’re on the right track.” She smiled warmly, and Mickey felt himself begin to relax a little. “So, you’ve been together over twenty years. That’s a long time. Sounds like more than half your lives.”

Mickey sniggered. “Yeah, I guess it is. Never thought about it that way.”

“You met at school?”

Ian chuckled. “Sorta. I was friends with his sister, and he was. . . getting into trouble most of the time. We mostly met through her in a roundabout way, but we were aware of each other growing up too. Played on the same little league team for a while. Stuff like that.”

She gestured at Ian’s wedding ring with her pen. “How long have you been married?”

“Since we decided to have Ben. So. . . almost seven years,” he replied.

“Great. So, you’ve been together since you were teenagers, you’ve been married seven years, I’m assuming happily? No friction between the two of you unrelated to the kids?”

“Nah,” said Mickey. “We’ve been good for a long time. I don’t even remember what it’s like not to have him around. Would be nice to see each other more, though. We, uh, kinda work opposite schedules now, and then the weekends are crazy hectic, mostly just takin’ care of the boys.”

“How often would you say you get to spend time just the two of you?”

Ian and Mickey looked at one another. “Hardly ever, really,” said Ian. “Sometimes we’ll get a sitter for the night, but not very often. I work early shifts at the hospital. I’m a nurse. Mickey’s the night manager over at an auto-parts plant. We mostly just pass each other by during the work week.”

“Must be tough.”

“Yeah,” said Mickey. “It pretty much sucks.”

“Alright, so together twenty-plus years, married seven, still anxious to spend time together. . . sounds like a good foundation to me. Why did you want to have children? I’m assuming this time around, it wasn’t an accident?”

They all laughed.

“No, it wasn’t,” Ian confirmed. “I guess I’m the one who brought it up. It just kind of hit me one day.”

“You didn’t always want them?”

He shook his head. “Not really. I mean, I didn’t actively _not_ want them. I’ve always liked kids. I helped out a lot with my younger siblings and everything, but I guess being gay where I came from, it didn’t really occur to me that I could build a family like a straight person could. And I guess when I was young, that kinda stuff didn’t matter to me anyway. I was pretty much just into the sex side of things. Really didn’t think Mickey would ever wanna get all traditional with me.”

He squeezed Mickey’s leg again, grinning at him with a twinkle in his eye that seemed rarer and rarer these days. It was weird that it never really registered to Mickey that the two of them used to be pretty damn romantic in their own way, back before they had babies. They didn’t really care about much of anything apart from each other, and all the other stuff about their lives was more incidental than anything else. Like when they were living on a shoestring in Mexico, sun-kissed and freckly messes of oily hair, with hardly any fucks to give.

“So why did you decide to get traditional with him, Mickey?” Sharon queried. “Had you thought about having any more kids before he brought it up?”

Mickey snorted. “Hell no. It wasn’t even on my radar. I. . . I couldn’t really be there for Yev for a lot of reasons. . . some beyond my control, some not so much. Didn’t think I’d make a good father to anyone.”

“But Ian changed your mind?”

He shrugged. “I guess. We talked about it for a long time before deciding for sure, and I sorta came around to the idea more and more. But I mostly did it for him, which he knows.”

“I just started to feel like maybe it would be nice to expand our lives,” explained Ian. “I really liked it being just the two of us, but I didn’t think it had to be that way forever. I missed having a crowded house for some twisted reason. It seemed like the logical next step.”

“Now that you’ve been through some of the challenges that child-rearing entails, do either of you ever regret the decision to have your sons? It’s okay to be honest if you have.”

Mickey was a little surprised at how adamantly they both shook their heads, and the fact that he was the one that spoke first. “Never. Just like I can’t imagine life without Ian anymore, I can’t imagine it without them either. It’s worth the frustrations.”

Ian took his hand, kissing the back of it with a soft smile. “Yeah, I mean, I have those fleeting moments where I wish I could go back in time to when things were simpler, but I know I wouldn’t actually have done anything differently. As crazy as they make me sometimes, I love the boys too much to wish they didn’t exist.”

The weeks wore on, and Mickey started to feel less and less dread each time they went to their family counseling appointments. They’d yet to bring the kids in with them, but that was apparently something that was going to happen in an upcoming session. Sharon’s office was near the hospital Ian worked at, so Mickey was able to drop off the boys at the daycare there for the hour they met with her every Tuesday afternoon after Ian’s shift ended. On those days, Mickey made up for his missed hour of work by staying later. It wasn’t something they’d have to do weekly for very long, though. It wasn’t like their marriage was falling apart or they were having a major crisis with the kids. It was just good to be able to talk things out and figure out ways to improve themselves; kind of a novel concept to Mickey, if he was being honest. Still, he was looking forward to going down to one visit a month.

An unexpected side effect of their sessions was the resurfacing of Mickey’s fears about being like Terry, and he kept giving away more and more of his childhood story with each prodding question calmly asked of him. He’d fight tooth and nail until his dying breath to never have his sons feel even one iota about him the way that he felt about his horrible father.

Ian’s main focus was on his struggles with seeing himself reflected so clearly in Henry. Where Mickey saw all of his youngest’s best qualities, Ian tended to highlight all the worst ones. He liked to beat himself up about it, but Mickey supposed it wasn’t so easy to just let go of that kind of insecurity. He could see that Ian was trying his best, and he could only hope that he’d get over it in time.

Their sessions were usually pretty tame, if emotionally draining on certain days, but they did have one particularly bad hour locked in a heated verbal fight in front of their counselor. They’d gotten into it about Henry’s preference for Mickey, and Benji’s preference for Ian, and things had quickly become accusatory, and eventually downright nasty. Sharon had insisted it was good for them to be that honest with their emotions in front of her, and had seemed to actually appreciate being privy to the way they fought. Though the tension hadn’t completely dissipated by the time they’d left her office that day, she had doled out some of her customary tips that might help them each stop unintentionally prioritizing one kid over the other, thus evening out each son’s affection levels towards both dads.

Over the next year, they started implementing a lot of Sharon’s suggestions into their lives. Some of the most helpful ones included a daily quiet time where the boys had to sit and color or do other arts and crafts type projects that would occupy them while sitting at the table. Benji would do his homework first, and Ian would give Henry new pages out of workbooks for his age group everyday, so he felt included. Another recommendation had been giving them separate group activities that involved meeting other kids and developing different social circles. Henry ended up taking karate classes, and Benji ended up on a soccer team. Ian acted as the parent liaison, as he had the ability in him to suck up to the kinds of people that Mickey always lacked a finesse with, and they managed to start scoring the boys playdates with other kids. Somehow, it hadn’t really registered with the couple that they’d become so insular, and had been making it difficult for their sons to branch out and learn how to befriend other children. Getting them out of the house more did wonders.

The biggest changes, however, came when Ian and Sharon’s combined gentle goading finally pushed Mickey to demand a work schedule with hours that more closely matched Ian’s. He finally realized it was necessary if they were ever going to truly get back on track and be more of a united team. He was resolute about it, and even decided that if he couldn’t get what he wanted from his company, he’d figure out how to go elsewhere. Luckily it didn’t come to that, and he was able to negotiate and stay on at the same plant. He waited until Henry started kindergarten that fall to make the switch, so that they could avoid sticking the boys in daycare all summer.

It was a time of upheaval all around, as they put another important adjustment into effect a few weeks before the first day of school: the end of the boys’ sharing a bedroom. Henry remained in the room he was already used to, so as not to freak him out even more, and Benji was moved into Yev’s old room which was barely ever used anymore. They’d planned on selling off his full-sized bed, plus one of the twin beds, and getting a bunkbed for Ben’s room, so that Yev would still have a place to sleep when he came over and not feel like he’d been completely pushed out of the Gallagher house. That was until Henry pitched an epic fit at the furniture store, which pretty much forced them to buy a bunkbed for his room too, just to avoid additional prolonged drama they didn’t need in their lives. They figured having two extra beds would be helpful when any of their other family visited, and it seemed fair to give both their sons the same kind of set-up. They made Henry swear not to ever try jumping off the top bunk, and he’d pinky-promised, so that was as good of an assurance as they were gonna get from a 5-year-old.

It was a rough time of transition for Henry, and Mickey’s heart broke for him a little bit during the first couple of months he was in elementary school. His son absolutely hated it at first, and cried every morning before Mickey dropped him off. He also kept sneaking into Ben’s room after lights out, and could be found sleeping in there the next day whenever his dads didn’t catch him before turning in themselves. He eventually adjusted, though, and with the help of a good-natured homeroom teacher, he started warming up to school slowly but surely.

With Mickey back in sync with Ian’s schedule, with only a two-hour difference in work start and end times, and the boys out of their hair with higher frequency, they were finally able to make more time for intimacy that wasn’t rushed or forced. They didn’t exactly get their old sex life back, but it was enough of an improvement that it could be seen and felt in their renewed closeness.

Everything seemed to fall into its right place, and suddenly felt like it fit together as it should. They were in some kind of new normal, and it was very. . . satisfying. Mickey would always be in awe of that whenever he stepped outside of himself and really thought about it. He and Ian had really fucking done it. They’d made a real family, and they were real parents.

It made every bad thing they’d ever had to endure feel worthwhile, and at 40 years old, Michael Gallagher, née Mikhailo Milkovich, finally felt like a real person.


	6. The Good Parents

The next couple of years seemed to fly by, just like the last couple of decades had before them, and Ian was genuinely proud of what his family had become.

They spent a lot of time together, getting out of the house and entertaining themselves with kid-friendly activities all around town. Henry continued with his karate lessons, but also joined a little league baseball team, and he looked so much like Ian had in his uniform it was kind of spooky. He was a pretty good hitter, and mostly played shortstop or second base. Benji had gotten really good at soccer and was a key player on one of the best teams in his league, acting as center forward. He wasn’t a total jock, though. He’d started showing a big aptitude for drawing, and he did so well in school, his third grade teacher had enrolled him in an after-school academic excellence program.

Ian and Mickey were total dads now, like pretty much 100% of the time, and it didn’t bother them at all. They kind of loved it. Mickey was particularly endearing in the way he reverted to his trash-talking south side self during his sons’ games. They all attended all the meets they could, splitting up only when any of the boys’ activities coincided. On occasion, Ian would have to hold Mickey back from overreacting and scaring the children and parents with the breadth of his foul-mouthed passion when he felt like one of his kids had been unfairly slighted in a game or a competition. In reality, Ian had always loved it when Mickey got all puffed up and red-in-the-face angry in defense of him or the kids. The protectiveness inherent in the displays amused and delighted him, but he still had to safeguard their family’s reputation enough not to alienate the moms and dads of the kids his sons were close to. Ian usually overcompensated for Mickey’s gruffness by baking a lot of cookies and things for the teams, or at least swinging by and picking up a big-ass bottle of Gatorade when he didn’t have time to do more. Mickey always gave him shit for wasting money on other people’s children, but he never let it get to him.

They also attempted to make some one-on-one time with each of their sons. Ian had made great strides in growing closer to Henry, and he no longer felt like his youngest hated him anymore. Instead of running to Mickey with everything all the time, their little redheaded spawn reached out to Ian first with increasing frequency. Benji was still his little man in many ways, but at age 9, he was growing more and more independent as the months went by, and it felt like only a matter of time before he’d be a secretive little asshole teenager, Ian was sure.

First grade had gone smoothly for Henry, for the most part, but second grade began on an unfortunately different foot.

Ian went to pick him up one afternoon that Benji was staying behind a couple more hours for his ‘cool classes’ as he’d dubbed them, and Henry had burst into tears as soon they’d pulled away from the curb.

“Aw, what is it, buddy?” asked Ian in a concerned tone, putting his big hand on his son’s little shoulder as he braked at a stop sign, and looked over.

Henry only shook his head stubbornly, crossing his arms, and refusing to look at his dad, as the tears ran down his flustered, freckly face.

“You want me to pull over?”

He only kept shaking his head.

“You’re not gonna talk to me?” He started driving again.

“Don’t wanna,” said Henry, wiping his nose with the back of his forearm.

“Why not? Maybe it’ll make you feel better.”

Henry shook his head again.

“Do you. . . wanna stop somewhere and get some ice cream?” Ian tried.

He shook his head again. “I want Daddy.”

Ian sighed heavily. It must be serious if he was calling Mickey ‘Daddy.’ Recently, both boys had been dropping the cutesy moniker for their respective favorite parents, and started calling them both ‘Dad’ all the time. It could sometimes be confusing, but it wasn’t really a big deal. He and Mickey had briefly discussed asking the kids to call one of them something different, so that there would be more clarity, but in the end, nothing else sounded right.

“Okay, bud. He’ll be home in a couple hours. You sure you don’t want some ice cream? We’re about to pass right by your favorite place.” It was a fib, but it felt justified.

There was a short silence, before Ian heard a mumbled, “Maybe.”

He grinned knowingly, and headed to get his sad son a double-scoop waffle cone.

“Benji’s gonna be mad,” Henry uttered with a teary little evil smirk when they pulled up to the shop.

Ian laughed. Of course Henry couldn’t wait to tell Ben that he’d gotten to indulge in a treat that his big brother had missed out on. Instead of chastising him for being a little shit who couldn’t keep anything to himself, he just answered, “Yeah, he is,” and ruffled his thick red curls.

By the time Mickey came home with Benji in tow, Henry had cheered up enough to stop sniveling, but still seemed forlorn as he watched cartoons with Ian on the couch. He still hadn’t budged on cluing Ian in on what had happened to upset him. As soon as he heard the key turning in the lock, he jumped up and ran towards the door, nearly bowling Mickey over, since his head had been turned in conversation with Ben behind him.

“What the hell?” Mickey said, looking down at the top of Henry’s head where he clung tightly to his waist, then over towards Ian, who shook his head with a frown.

He shuffled Henry to the side so Benji could come in, and Ian went over to take his eldest’s backpack from him and lead him to his room to talk about his day. “What’s wrong, buddy?” he heard Mickey ask Henry, as he led Ben away.

Ian dawdled in Benji’s room as he got him started on his homework, trying to give Mickey time to get Henry to fess up. After a few minutes, Mickey’s knuckles rapped on the slightly ajar door, and he gave Ian a meaningful look, before turning toward the end of the hallway. Ian followed him to their bedroom and closed the door, waiting for him to speak.

“Some little punks’ve started bullyin’ our kid at school,” he told him.

“Fuck,” Ian breathed exasperatedly, “I had a feeling it was something like that. He okay?”

“I don’t know. I think maybe you should talk to him about it.”

Ian blinked at him. “What? He wanted to talk to you about it. He wouldn’t even say a word to me, he just cried the whole way to the ice cream shop, and then he sat there with me silently watching the TV, waiting for _Daddy_ to come home.”

Mickey’s face softened. “Ian. . . he’s just embarrassed to talk to you about it, because they’re fuckin’ with him about his appearance.”

Ian practically growled in frustration. “Goddammit! I fucking told you!” Mickey urged him to quiet his voice with a mere look and a gesture, and he lowered his volume. “I knew he was gonna be messed with by some little asshole or another. How long has this been going on?”

“Just started, I think. He would’a said something.”

“Well, good. We should tell him to kick their ignorant little asses.”

Mickey snorted, stepping forward to grasp Ian by the waist and jostle him a bit. “Settle down, tough guy. I don’t know if it’s the best idea to start him down a path of kickin’ ass at 7 years old. Aren’t we supposed to make them do the opposite of what we would’a done?”

“Pssh! In this case, I don’t think so. He takes karate. He could just kick ‘em all in the face and they’d drop like flies.”

Mickey chuckled. “Yeah, okay, father of Chuck Norris. Can we try just talkin’ to him before we start advocating violence on the playground?”

Ian sighed, dropping his forehead down to Mickey’s. “I suppose so.”

“Good. This is your territory. You got shit from kids about the same damn thing when you were young. He’s out there sittin’ at the table with a coloring book, lookin’ miserable. Cheer him up?”

“Yeah, okay.” He kissed Mickey briefly, rubbing his cheek with his thumb, then headed to the dining room area.

Henry was sitting at the head of the rectangular six-place wooden table, and Ian settled into the seat to his left, as Mickey made his way into the adjacent kitchen, wandering around and keeping an ear out as he pretended to straighten and clean.

“Hey,” said Ian, as Henry continued coloring, ignoring him for the most part.

“Hey,” he parroted softly without raising his head.

“Daddy told me there were some boys at school that said mean things to you today.”

He shrugged as he ran a cerulean Crayola across a large section of ocean depicted on the page.

“What kinda things did they say?” prodded Ian.

“Nothing,” said Henry, still holding out.

Ian looked toward the kitchen to find Mickey giving him a look that clearly told him to try harder. Ian widened his eyes, subtly jerking his head in a desperate sort of silent plea to get Mickey to come help him, but his husband only shook his head and pointed to him as if to say, ‘It’s all you.’

Ian looked back over toward his son. “You know, when I was your age, there were some boys who messed with me too.” The blue scribbling stopped. “They especially liked to make fun of my hair and my freckles.” Henry looked up at him, eyes watering again. “I used to look just like you, you know?”

“You did?” asked Henry distrustfully.

“Yeah, I did. You don’t believe me?”

Henry shook his head.

“Mick!” Ian called towards the kitchen, and his husband emerged with his arms crossed, eyebrows raised, and lips pursed. “Can you go find that family photo album? Henry doesn’t believe that he looks just like me when I was little.”

Mickey snickered. “Oh, really? You’re in for a surprise, little man.”

While Mickey retrieved the picture book, Ian continued trying to comfort Henry by relating to him. “When I was a kid, there were so many goofy names people could call me, like the McDonald’s clown, Ronald McDonald. That was the main one. He had bright red curly hair. Did they call you any names like that?”

“No. They said I looked weird like an alien. They poked fun cuz I don’t have any eyebrows. They were real mean.”

Ian’s heart twinged as his youngest’s bottom lip quivered, big eyes watering up again. “I’m sorry they were mean to you, buddy. You just have to know that it’s not really about you when kids do that. They’re mean because they have stuff going on at home that they don’t know how to deal with. They’re mean because they’re not happy.”

“But why’d they do it to _me_ , though?”

“Some people who aren’t very smart see one thing different about someone, and they use it against them.”

“Why don’t more people have red hair?”

Ian shrugged. “It’s just a rare hair color trait, but that’s what makes it cool. We get to look more unique than other people with boring, normal hair colors. When you grow up, most people are really jealous of natural red hair.”

“Not me. I’m too ugly.”

“Henry. . . You’re not ugly. You’re beautiful.”

“Ugh! Dad! I’m not beautiful. Don’t say that.”

“What’re you talkin’ about, man?” asked Mickey, re-entering the room. “Look, don’t tell Benji I said this, but you’re the most adorable of all the men in this house. That’s four men.” He emphasized it by sticking four fingers in Henry’s face as he sat down at the table on their son’s other side and sat a photo album between them.

Ian shot him a small smile, then reached his hand out to grab one of Henry’s, squeezing lightly to get his attention. “Hey.” He bumped his chin up. “You ready to see those pictures?”

Henry heaved a big sigh. “Okay.”

Ian smirked and opened the book. It was in roughly chronological order, opening with both his and Mickey’s baby and toddler pics, then moving through their childhood years. It wasn’t like either collection was vast, and there were more of Ian than of Mickey, but it was more than enough to pass along to their kids for posterity. He was lucky that Mandy had held onto a tiny box of fond Milkovich memories through the years, many of which were from when their mother had been alive. Mandy had passed them along as a wedding present. Ian had then printed out a lot of digital pics off his and other people’s phones for stuff from their teen years and beyond. They had another album that started when Benji was born.

He flipped through a few pages to the years where he was about Henry’s age, snickering when he got to the first batch. He turned the album sideways and placed it in front of his boy, pointing to an embarrassing elementary school portrait. “Look, no eyebrows!”

Henry remained steadfastly silent, small hands on his cheeks as he stared at the page.

“Don’t you think you look just like your dad?” Mickey asked, poking him playfully in the side. He pointed at a photo of a 6-year-old Ian running with his mouth open mid-scream, as a 7-year-old Lip chased him through their old backyard. “Look at that! It’s crazy.”

Henry pushed the album away. “So what?” He crossed his arms obstinately.

Ian almost laughed, but also didn’t know how to respond to that.

“So, look at your dad now,” said Mickey. “He’s super hot.”

Ian snorted, throwing a hand up to smother his laughter, lest Henry think he was making fun of him. He gave Mickey a pointed stare, mouthing, ‘ _Really?_ ’ An unspoken ‘ _That’s the tack you’re gonna take with this?_ ’ Mickey just shrugged.

“You have to say that, cuz you’re married,” Henry replied.

Ian snorted again, head bobbing while he continued muffling his laughter. Mickey just looked frustrated.

“You don’t think I’m a handsome dad?” Ian queried once he had the giggles under control. “You think I look like a weird alien clown?”

“No.”

“You wanna grow up like me?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, you will. And look. . .” he reached over to bump Henry’s chin up again, so he’d look at Ian’s face, “I have eyebrows.” He wiggled them comically.

Henry finally cracked the tiniest of reluctant smiles, but he was still fighting to stay stubbornly upset. “Are kids just gonna be mean to me until I get big like you?”

“No,” stated Ian firmly. “Most people at school are nice, aren’t they? You have a lot of friends there and from your teams. You don’t wanna be friends with mean kids anyway, right? It’s okay if they don’t like you. Now you just gotta not let it bother you if they say something rude.”

Mickey made a single _tsk_ kind of a noise, and Ian looked over to see the full glory high eyebrows, and lip-sucking that indicated he was trying really hard not to say something really harsh. Ian shot him one arched brow of his own, because Mickey was the one who said not to advocate violence. What was he supposed to tell the kid, to call the culprits ugly back, and make fun of them in turn? Wasn’t that just as bad as throwing punches? They definitely weren’t the types to raise little rats running to tell the teacher on people. Maybe that would be the most responsible option, but it was a part of that undying bit of south side in them that wouldn’t allow for that kind of reliance on authority figures.

“If they ever start pushing you around, though,” Mickey told Henry, “if they touch you or hurt you, then it’s okay to hit them back, okay? Or if they try to take anything that belongs to you. Can’t let ‘em.”

Henry looked at him with interest. “Really?”

“Only if they hit you first! Or if they try to steal what’s yours,” Mickey admonished, pointing his finger at him. “And for fuck’s sake, don’t let a teacher see you, okay? Gotta be smart about it. Only fight in defense, and don’t let there be any witnesses, understand?”

Henry nodded emphatically.

Ian sighed loudly. “That’s not the whole point you should be taking away from this, alright?” He urged the boy to look his way again. “Do you get that you’re not ugly? You’re a really cute boy, and it doesn’t matter what those idiot bullies say, okay?”

He nodded a little less enthusiastically. “You really think I’m gonna look like you when I grow up?”

His green eyes glimmered hopefully, tugging at Ian’s heartstrings.

“I don’t think so, buddy,” Ian answered, “I _know_ so. Just look at those pictures!”

He pushed the album back towards his son and pointed to his 7-year-old self smiling all big and goofy, more freckles than paleness, his red hair at peak curly hobbit top, eyebrows so thin they were nowhere to be seen.

“You know, that’s what your dad looked like when I first met him,” supplied Mickey. “It was right around that age.”

Ian smiled fondly as Mickey caught his eye, smirking and pointing at the opposite page. “And that’s what Daddy looked like. Look at his big goofy teeth!”

Henry actually laughed at that. “You met when you were little kids?” he asked dubiously.

“We did,” replied Mickey. “And guess what? I had a crush on him. Know why?” Henry shook his head. “Cuz he was real cute.”

Mickey smiled widely at Ian, who rolled his eyes, but also smiled nonetheless.

“Ewww,” said Henry, interrupting their sweet moment. “Gross, Dad! I don’t wanna hear about you two.”

Ian laughed. “Why not?”

“Because.”

“Because why?” countered Ian.

“Because you like to kiss each other. I don’t wanna kiss anyone.”

“Maybe not yet,” said Ian, “but you might one day.”

Henry shook his head. “Nope.”

Ian and Mickey both laughed.

“Why don’t I look like Benji?” asked Henry, flipping to another page of the photo book. “He looks like Daddy when he was little.” He pointed to a shot of young Mickey and Mandy sitting on their front stoop.

“Well, we told you guys about that a couple years ago, remember?” replied Ian. “About how Svetlana had you both for us, but only one of us could give her our DNA each time?” They hadn’t felt comfortable calling it ‘sperm’ for their 5 and 7-year-olds. They may have sanitized things and left out details, but both boys understood the gist of it. “You belong to both of us, but you were made from a part of me, and your brother was made from a part of Daddy.”

“Yeah, I know, but it’s still pretty weird,” said Henry.

“I know,” replied Mickey. “It is a little weird, but that’s okay. We’re a family. All families are weird in their own ways. At least we all love each other, right?”

“I guess,” his son said disinterestedly.

“You guess?” asked Ian. “What do you mean? You don’t love us?”

“I said ‘I guess.’”

“Well maybe that’s not good enough,” said Ian, rising from his chair to get at Henry’s. He pushed it way from the table and started tickling the boy’s tummy as he yelled and laughed, then went in for the kill by blowing raspberries against his small neck. The harsh tickle of Ian’s stubble was a gleeful pet peeve of Henry’s, and he wasn’t looking forward to the day his son outgrew their little routine. He finally had one too many loud squeals of protest directly in his ear, so he relented, pulling back to let his son calm down. “Say you love us!”

“Okay, okay,” huffed Henry, red-faced and catching his breath, “I love you.”

“You love who?” asked Mickey.

“You!” cried Henry. “And Dad.”

“And Ben?” pressed Mickey.

Henry nodded. “And Yev.”

“Good. So, what do you want to eat tonight?” asked Ian. “Daddy’ll make you anything you want. You get to decide.”

“Thanks a lot, _Dad_ ,” Mickey said pointedly, giving him a look of displeasure. Usually when Henry got to choose lately, he asked for chicken parmesan and noodles, which was sort of involved. But sometimes he was content with mashed potatoes and grilled cheese, which would be pretty easy.

“Anything to cheer up our Charlie,” responded Ian.

“ _Willy Wonka!_ ” cried Henry excitedly, and Mickey cringed.

“Seriously, Dad,” he deadpanned, “thanks a fuckin’ lot.”

Ian suppressed his giggle. Mickey loathed _Willy Wonka_ for some unfathomable reason. “We can watch that movie, for sure, but what do you wanna eat?”

“Ummm. . . I thiiiiiink. . . chicken parmesan.”

Mickey sighed exaggeratedly, grunting, “I’ll get the keys.”

“Say thank you to Daddy,” Ian urged.

“Thank you, Daddy!” sang Henry, and he sounded like himself again.

Mickey turned back, unable to stop his smile, ruffling his son’s hair. “You’re welcome, buddy. You wanna come to the store with me? I don’t have the ingredients I need.”

Henry looked back and forth between the two of them, then shook his head. “Dad can watch _Willy Wonka_ with me,” he said, gazing up at Ian.

He smiled down at the boy, “You know it’s one of my favorites. Why don’t you go find it, and I’ll be right there. Let me know when it’s all set up.”

“‘Kay!” cried Henry, running toward the living room couch.

“Please watch at least two thirds of that shit while I’m gone,” Mickey quietly pleaded with Ian, then hollered, “Benji! You wanna go to the store with me?”

“Yeah!” they heard a muffled yell back, before the door burst open, and Ben ran out. “I’ll go with you.”

“You finish your homework?” asked Ian.

“Just gotta do a Math sheet. I can finish it before dinner.”

“Alright, go ahead,”said Ian, squeezing Ben’s neck, then carding fingers through his black hair.

“That seemed to go alright,” said Mickey, nudging his head toward the living room.

“I guess,” replied Ian. “If anything, we’ll just keep building up his confidence, and if that doesn’t work, maybe we’ll get him to tell the kids off with some choice putdowns.”

“Why do I have a feeling he’s gonna end up giving the ringleader a bloody nose?” asked Mickey.

As it turned out, that guess hadn’t been entirely wrong.

  


* * *

  


“Dad, do you think I’m gay?”

It was a good thing Mickey had just finished swallowing the beer he’d been drinking and put the can back down on the table. As it was, he was practically choking on his own spit, coughing in discomfort as his brain tried to latch onto something to say that would make sense in response to his 10-year-old son asking such a question seemingly at random.

It was a Sunday afternoon, and they were sitting around just the two of them, watching a European soccer match. They’d barely even been speaking in the last hour, as Ben seemed to be zoned out, drawing in his sketchbook more than he was paying attention to the TV. Mickey never thought he’d be one to sit around watching soccer, but his penchant for the sport had been resurrected by Benji’s interest and prowess in it. Watching _fútbol_ games had been a favorite pastime of his old group of _viejito_ friends back in Mexico. He’d begrudgingly let himself be roped into cheering on the appropriate preferred teams in the region at the time, and ended up getting pretty into it.

Mickey watched as Ben’s hand moved along the page as if he hadn’t said a word, clearly uncaring as to his dad’s response one way or the other.

“Why do you ask that?” he inquired tentatively.

Ben shrugged, not looking up. “I don’t know. Maybe I like gay things.”

“What do you mean?”

“Like. . . I don’t know. Maybe I’m just a fucking nerd.”

Lately, Benji had been testing the boundaries with cussing around him and Ian. It was surprising how annoyed it made Mickey. Not like he cared that his son was ‘foul-mouthed’ or anything, it was just the obvious challenge it entailed, like the kid was asking for a rise. That really got Mickey’s goat, but he never reacted. Ian had asked him not to more than once.

“What the hell, man? Just tell me what happened. Someone call you a gay nerd?”

“Not really. I was just showing my sketchbook to Raj and Adam yesterday, and they said my fantasy drawings were gay.”

Mickey crinkled his nose and furrowed his brow. “That’s it?”

Benji sighed. “I don’t know.”

“If you’re askin’ me if drawing powerful wizards, and cool planets, and freaky aliens and shit makes you gay, the answer is no, kid. That doesn’t make you gay.”

Ben’s pencil stopped scratching and he looked up at Mickey finally. “You and Dad are gay.”

Mickey nodded, rubbing at the back of his neck. “I know we are, kid, but that doesn’t mean you’re gay.”

“How do you know?”

“I don’t. Maybe you are. It just doesn’t work that way. Me and Dad bein’ gay don’t make you or Henry gay.”

“So then, how do I know?”

“Do you like boys?”

“Like how?”

Mickey really wished Ian were home right now. He was out with Henry, and the one kid he was friends with that had a parent that Ian had actually become close with. They sometimes went on excursions together sans husbands, and usually Mickey took that time to hang with Ben. Although. . . as luck would have it, there was another person home with them that weekend.

“YEV!” Mickey called out a little too loudly.

There was a moment’s pause, then a door could be heard opening off the hallway. “Yeah?”

“Can you c’mere for a sec? Your little brother has a question for you.”

“Dad!” Ben grumbled, hiding his face. “Why’d you tell him? I asked you!”

“Don’t be embarrassed. He’s the most qualified person to answer this question for you, since he’s my son too. He’s your big brother.”

“So? I don’t wanna bother him!”

“Don’t wanna bother me with what?” Yev asked, coming to a stand in front of them, next to the coffee table.

Yevgeny was nearly 24 now, and despite being his father’s most obvious outward sign of the sheer passage of time since Mickey’s youth (barring his own face in the mirror), he was extremely proud of the person his son had grown into. He was still in school, working on a damn master’s degree in Architectural Engineering. He was trilingual, having grown up speaking Russian with Svet at home, plus studying French in school, then doing an immersion semester the previous year in Paris. He was really into environmental shit, having been brainwashed by all of Ian’s outdoorsy excursions throughout the years. He’d even grown a decent beard, and his hair was getting longer than Mickey’s had been when he’d broken out of prison. Yev was generally the most unexpected, pleasant, intelligent person you could ever imagine spawning from the likes of a lifelong fugitive and a former prostitute, neither of whom officially completed any schooling beyond the 9th grade.

“Ben has questions about havin’ gay dads,” said Mickey. “Thinks it might make him gay too.”

Yev smiled, but didn’t laugh, thank fuck. He cast an inquisitive glance at Mickey, then at Ben, taking a seat in the blue stuffed chair near his little brother, perching one bare foot up on the table ledge. “Well, I don’t have a girlfriend right now, but I do like girls, and I don’t like boys. So, I’m not gay like Dad. I’m straight.”

“Like your mom?” asked Benji, and Yev gave their father an uneasy look.

Mickey sighed, dropping his shoulders in defeat. It looked like he was gonna have to get into all this uncomfortable shit, like it or not, so he might as well be as honest as possible. He needed to text Ian to come home. Although, it was getting late enough that he may have already been headed back.

“Svetlana’s not entirely straight, Ben,” said Mickey. “She likes men, and she likes women too. It’s called bisexual, or just bi.”

“She likes both?” Ben questioned, arching an eyebrow.

“Yeah,” answered Yev. “When I was growing up, sometimes she had boyfriends, and sometimes she had girlfriends. She could be with either.”

“They didn’t tell us any of that in Sex Ed,” said Benji.

Yev looked at Mickey again, with a slightly disconcerted expression.

“What’d they teach you in Sex Ed?” asked Mickey.

Last semester, his class had started their first courses on the subject, but so far, Ben hadn’t brought any questions home to them. It was possible he’d mentioned something to Ian when Mickey wasn’t around, but he probably would’ve heard about it.

“Mostly about how babies are made, and how boys and girls develop into men and women. They haven’t said anything about gay people.”

“That’s kinda bullshit,” muttered Yev.

“Well, they’re probly savin’ that for later,” said Mickey, unsure, but not wanting to make a big deal of it at the moment. “We can find out for you.”

“I mean, we’re in Colorado,” Yev added. “It’s not like you’re the only gay parents at the school and around town. They should be teaching them about LGBTQ stuff, right?”

Mickey shrugged. “I don’t know. Like I said, we can find out. Make sure they’re not bein’ dicks about it.”

“So how do I know if I’m gay like you, or straight like Yev, or bi like Lana?” Benji asked him.

Mickey looked to Yev again, hoping for some kinda cue, but he offered none. “Um, have you ever kissed anyone?” he said at last.

Benji shook his head adamantly.

“Well, have you ever had a crush on anyone?” Mickey tried again. “Wanted to kiss ‘em? Or just wanted to be around ‘em a lot, cuz they make you feel funny, like all messed up, but in a good way?”

Ben just kind of shrugged bewilderedly, so Mickey looked to Yev once more to see if he had a better way of putting it.

“It doesn’t really matter if you’ve liked anyone before or not, man,” said Yev. “You don’t really need to know anything until you’re ready to start dating, so you’ve got a few years.”

“You mean dating like having sex?” Benji asked innocently.

Mickey exchanged another look with Yev. Man, he really need Ian right now. Apparently his face conveyed the unspoken thought, because Yev’s next words read his mind. “Maybe we should call Ian. He’d probably wanna be a part of this conversation.”

Mickey nodded at him thankfully, watching as he got up to find somewhere private to chat on the phone. “Hey, Dad,” he heard Yev say into the phone before the backdoor closed. He’d been calling Ian his dad too, since a couple a years after he’d started applying it to Mickey. Odd as it was, they’d both been involved in his life pretty much the exact same amount, so it only seemed fair. Yev had said he was doing it for the benefit of his future siblings, so they wouldn’t be confused, but Mickey knew he just loved Ian a lot, and didn’t really see much difference between the two of them. Yev didn’t know how he was conceived, and never would as far as all parental figures were concerned, but he did know it had been unorthodox, and he knew Ian was a part of the picture from day one. They had a couple of literal pictures to prove it.

He turned towards Benji and gave him a strained smile. “Uh, so, what all did your teacher say about sex?”

“That it’s what a man and a woman do to make a baby.”

Mickey almost guffawed, but he literally bit his tongue to keep from doing so. “Uh huh. Sometimes that’s true, but not always. Not usually, really, cuz if everyone who had sex had a baby, we’d all be dead, because the literal entire planet would be so covered in humans, it’d fill up every bit of land and ocean, and we’d have no resources left to mine,” he rambled.

Benji scrunched his face up. “Huh?”

“Nothin’. Look–”

He heard the backdoor again, grateful as fuck when Yev called out, “Dad’s on his way home now. They’ll be here in like 10 minutes.”

Mickey clapped his hands together once and shot to his feet. “I gotta go take care of somethin’ before he gets here. Stay with your brother, but don’t keep talkin’ about this shit now. We’ll do it when Dad gets back.”

He gave Yev the nod of trust, indicating he’d be outside smoking pot like the secret stoner he’d been for so many years now.

As he stood out back under their one tree in a corner of the yard, hitting his pipe, he wondered how the fuck he got here. His whole life was all about taking care of four people. Four boys. Four men. Nothing was about himself anymore, and he preferred it that way, but now here he was being forced into a conversation he wasn’t entirely sure he was ready for. And it wasn’t exactly like Mickey was shy about sex, but he’d never had to explain how it worked between two guys to his son whose age only just reached the double digits.

He paced around lost in thought, until he saw the backdoor opening, and Ian emerged with an amused-ass smile on his face.

“Nuh-uh,” warned Mickey, shaking his head and wagging a finger at him, licking his lips. “You need to wipe that smirk off your face right fuckin’ now. This ain’t funny.”

Ian rolled his eyes as he sauntered towards him, hands in his pockets, casual as can be. “It’s a little funny.”

“No. It’s not. You weren’t here. He just. . . came at me. . . I wasn’t expecting it at all, just BOOM, ‘Dad, am I gay?’ I was watchin’ fuckin’ Real Madrid kick Barcelona’s ass, then suddenly my kid is askin’ how two dudes do it.”

Ian chuckled, reaching out a hand and squeezing his shoulder. “I’m sorry I missed it, babe. What all have you told him?” He reached out for the pipe in Mickey’s hand.

Mickey batted his hand away, took another hit, then passed it to him. “Not fuckin’ much. Just like that it’s okay not to know his sexual preference yet. That he’s too young for it to matter.”

“Sounds appropriate,” said Ian, exhaling a plume of smoke above his head, so that it floated up toward the canopy of the treetop. “What’s the problem?”

“The problem is that he clearly wants to ask about gay sex. All he learned in Sex Ed was straight shit, so he’s all curious, cuz we’re gay, and some of his little dipshit soccer buddies told him his drawings were gay, so now he thinks he may be gay. He gets it, but he doesn’t _get it_ , if you know what I mean. How am I s’posed to tell my 4th grader about ass-fucking?”

Ian giggled, snorting out another cloud of smoke. “Relax, Mick. We can do this. We’ve done an endless list of things that were way harder than this shit.”

Mickey snatched the pipe out of his hand to kill off whatever was left. “What if he fuckin’ asks who takes it? The fuck am I s’posed to say to that, huh?”

Ian snorted again. “Oh my god, will you fucking chill? He’s not gonna ask us that. And even if he does, that’s not something we have to answer specifically. Not to mention, the kids have walked in on us before. They were too young to know what was going on, but they knew it was something intimate, and I’m sure that deep down, he already knows what we were doing.”

“I still feel weird about explainin’ it. What’s a euphemism for butt sex?”

“There’s a euphemism? I don’t think saying the word ‘anal’ really helps much.”

“Why am I the only one freakin’ out about this?” Mickey complained.

Ian shrugged. “I don’t know.I mean, this day had to come eventually. We knew that as they got older they’d have more and more questions about how they came to be, and what we mean to each other, and how that works compared to most families. This is a part of all that. We can’t let him get all freaked out about sex. We have to make sure he’s comfortable with it, and that starts now.”

“It’s too soon,” replied Mickey.

“If he’s asking about it, it’s not too soon. We can’t lie to him.”

“I’m not sayin’ lie to him, I’m just sayin’. . . he doesn’t need to know everything just yet.”

“Then we won’t tell him everything. But we can tell him some; enough so that he’ll understand.”

“Can’t we just wait for the teachers to do it? You know they’re gonna get to it at some point, they’re probly just waitin’ for the gay chapter of Intro to Sex Ed. It’ll happen any month now.”

Ian sighed and shook his head. “Mick, we’re doing this now, so fucking nut up.”

He leaned in for a quick, forceful smack of the lips, yanked the pipe and lighter out of Mickey’s hands, and headed back toward the house. Mickey groused under his breath at the bushes, rubbing the soles of his bare feet in the grass a few times, before following Ian inside.

Henry was climbing all over the armchair Yev was still sitting in, while Ben was still on the couch, but he’d closed his sketchbook, and was now talking smack with his brothers somewhat animatedly.

“Hey, Dad,” said Henry when he spotted Mickey.

“Hey, bud,” he replied, stepping forward to gently extricate him from Yev’s chair and place him on his feet on the floor. “How was your day with Jamaal?”

“Good. We played Legos in his fort, and I got to go real high on the tire swing, then we played video games, and then we pretended to be ninjas.”

“Sweet. That sounds awesome. Why don’t you go play with Yev in your room for a bit? Show him some of your new orange belt moves?”

“That sounds pretty cool,” said Yev, rising and playing along.

“Okay, come on,” said Henry. “You comin’, Benji?”

“No,” interjected Ian, reappearing, “Ben’s gonna hang out in here with us for a little bit. We just need to talk about something from school.”

Henry looked over at Ben curiously, but thankfully didn’t protest.

Benji crossed his arms and leaned back into the cushions, glancing up at Ian. “What did Dad tell you?”

Ian sat down in the chair Yev had just vacated, leaning forward with his arms on his knees, nonchalantly responding, “Not much. Just that you have some questions.” There was a pause in which no one said anything, so Ian pressed forward. “Go ahead, man. Ask away.”

Ben sighed. “It’s not a big deal!”

“We know,” said Ian. “But you can still ask us anything. We’ll explain it the best we can. What do you wanna know?”

“I don’t know. I just was wondering what I am,” his son answered.

Ian’s face softened considerably at the unintentionally deep question. They shouldn’t be surprised by that anymore. Benji was a really smart kid, capable of disarming them with small comments on a pretty regular basis.

“You’re you,” Ian stated decisively. “Whoever you wanna be.”

“Am I like you and Dad?” he asked, peeking at Mickey, before turning back to Ian.

“Of course you are. We’re your parents. I have a feeling you’ll end up being more like us than you even want to be. And look at your dad,” Ian nodded his head toward Mickey. “The two of you are even sitting in the same positions right now. You look exactly alike. We already know some of the ways you’re like us, whether we can see ‘em or not, but there’s gonna be other things we just won’t be able to tell for a while. Stuff changes as you grow up, and you don’t need to have all the answers yet. So, if you’re asking if you’re gay like we are, the answer is we don’t know. Maybe, maybe not. It doesn’t really matter, though, does it? Either way, we’ll love you the same.”

“I’m not a baby,” spat Benji. “Why do I have to wait to know?”

Ian shrugged. “That’s just how it usually works with everything when you’re growing up. You’ll know when it’s time to know.”

“And it’s not time, because I’m too young to date people?” asked Ben.

“Right,” Mickey jumped in, casting his eyes askance at his husband, sensing what was to come.

“And dating means having sex?” their son said.

Yahtzee.

Of course Ian didn’t falter, keeping his gaze focused on Benji’s. “Sometimes, but not always. You usually work up to that. At first, it just means liking someone, and taking them out, maybe some light hand-holding in the beginning,” he glanced at Mickey then, with an amused smile and a twinkle in his eye. “Maybe some kissing. Then later, maybe sex, if you both want to.”

“You and Dad have sex?” continued Ben.

Mickey coughed and looked away.

“Yeah, we do,” said Ian.

“How? Men don’t have vaginas,” Benji retorted.

Jesus Christ.

“You’re right, we don’t,” affirmed Ian. “So, for gay men, instead of putting the penis into someone’s vagina, the penis goes into the other person’s butt.”

Mickey could swear his ears were ringing, and his extremities were going numb. He was gonna need a stiff drink later. Still, he did a double-take and took in his son’s face, which was comically baffled.

“Their butt?” he questioned with extreme incredulity.

“Yep,” said Ian.

Ben’s expression quickly morphed into the dreaded yuck face.

“Ewwwww,” his son said, and it finally became impossible for Mickey and Ian not to laugh. “That’s gross, Dad. That’s where poop comes from.”

They laughed harder, and Mickey began to feel a little better, ironically. Because when you thought about it on the level of a child, it did sound pretty ridiculous, and when all you knew about butts is that they were for shitting and farting, of course it was gonna sound messy and disgusting.

“There’s ways to make it clean, man. You just gotta wash,” Mickey assured. “It’s not as icky as it sounds.”

“Why do guys have sex together then?” Benji replied. “If you have to use butts?”

“Because it feels good,” answered Ian. “We’re not attracted to women, or vaginas, but we are attracted to men, and penises, and butts. It’s one of those things you won’t understand until you’re older. After you go through puberty, you’ll start to feel things you don’t feel yet, and then it’ll make sense. Whether it’s for a guy or a girl, you’ll figure out what it is you like. One or the other, or both, or none.”

Mickey watched as his son shook his head, sighing, “Sex is weird.”

The parents laughed again.

“Yeah, it is,” agreed Mickey. “So whenever you start to feel like you like someone, you can tell us, okay? Boy or girl. You’ll still be just like us, even if you don’t like what we like.”

“Do you have any other questions?” Ian queried after a pause.

Benji shook his head adamantly. “I don’t think I wanna know anything else.”

His dads cracked up again, and Ian gave Mickey a fond look that flooded him with relief.

“Why don’t you go get your brothers and we’ll watch something together before dinner,” Ian said to Ben, waiting until he was gone to get up and come sit next to Mickey on the sofa. He threw his arm around Mickey’s shoulders and squeezed. “See? That wasn’t so bad.”

“Yeah yeah yeah,” singsonged Mickey. “He thinks we’re fuckin’ dirty degenerates now, and probly won’t ever look at us the same again, but whatever. No big deal.”

Ian snorted and smacked him in the back of the head. “He’s 10, he’ll shrug it off in no time.”

Mickey knocked their knees together, turning his head into Ian’s shoulder, and nuzzling his long, pale neck. “Thanks for savin’ me,” he said lowly, brushing a kiss underneath his jawline.

Ian ran his hand down Mickey’s side until he reached the hem of his tee shirt, slipping underneath it to skim lightly over the skin above his hip. “Always,” he whispered, landing a kiss on his nose.

Their sons emerged from the hallway, Ben and Henry shoving each other into the room, Yev intervening to pull them apart and push them in separate directions around the table.

“You finished with your project, Yev?” asked Ian.

“Pretty much. Need to add some notes and double-check everything, but it’s not due until the afternoon tomorrow, so I have enough time to finish it in the morning,” replied Yevgeny, moving to sit back in the armchair.

“Nope,” snapped Ian, as Benji settled at his side, “you gotta come sit on the couch with us. Family rules.”

Yev rolled his eyes, bouncing back out of the chair again, and sitting on Ben’s other side. Henry climbed up next to Mickey on the long sectional, leaning back into the corner, and throwing his grubby little feet into his dad’s lap.

“What are we watching?” asked Benji.

“I don’t know,” said Mickey. “What do you feel like?”

“Something with superheroes!” shouted Henry.

“Surprise, surprise,” muttered Ian.

“Let Yevy pick, since he’s the guest,” Ben said diplomatically, but Mickey could hear him loudly whispering something at his older brother to sway his vote.

Henry yelped, “No fair!” kicking Mickey’s leg in the process.

“Watch it, Henry,” he warned. “Don’t be a brat.”

“I haven’t been to the movies in months,” said Yev. “Just pick something kinda new that you haven’t seen a million times.”

“ _Are_ there any movies that we haven’t seen a million times?” Ian asked Mickey.

It definitely felt like they’d been forced into at least peripherally viewing everything the kids were remotely interested in that was available for streaming at least one thousand times apiece.

“Just rent something,” ordered Benji.

“Yeah, rent something,” repeated Henry.

Mickey sighed heavily, leaning further into Ian, after he’d reached for the remote and started perusing the new release menu.

While the rest of his family was staring at the screen, commenting and throwing out suggestions, he took the opportunity to slyly study their faces. The way Ben and Yev looked like his spitting image still sort of took his breath away sometimes. They were so much more than he could ever have hoped. They were so good. The best of him, really, just like Henry was the best of Ian. He turned his head toward his youngest, then started tickling his feet until the boy giggled uncontrollably, squirming out of his dad’s grasp so he could lie in the other direction, with his head now resting on Mickey’s lap, instead of his feet.

Then there was Ian himself. . . the best decision he’d ever made in his life. And he’d made it more than once. He’d made it over and over again on a seemingly endless loop since as far back as he could remember. Mickey still loved just staring at him sometimes. After all those years, Ian was still the best thing to look at. He was still that goofy, brave, 15-year-old with a big heart that had tempted and won the toughest, meanest version of Mickey.

Ian was the reason Mickey was even still alive. There was no doubt in his mind about that. And not just alive, but living as the best version of himself. A version he couldn’t have imagined existing even in his wildest dreams when he was younger. A version that was expected to be operating at the highest levels of loyalty, devotion, responsibility, compassion, judgment, care, and love.

Ian had given him love. A love that expanded in ways that left him speechless. A love that extended to other people; that fucking _created_ other people.

Ian had given him a real family to belong to. And now Mickey had everything.

  


  


  
  
*****  
The End**  


**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! I welcome any and all comments.
> 
> [Tumblr](http://thevioletjones.tumblr.com/)


End file.
